Nothing from Nothing
by SaoirseConnelly
Summary: Michael and Fiona go undercover as a married couple in a Stepford town. Much madness ensues. M-rated for violence, smut, swearing, humor, sandwiches, and gun-toting grannies. Now Complete!
1. The Shame

Disclaimer: Not mine. Thank you to the directors/actors/writers for letting me borrow their toys.

1. The Shame

_Miami: The 1970s_

He is just a kid. His hands are small and brown and always dirty. They are weak.

He is weak.

He is _nothing_.

He is lying on the floor in the kitchen and his face is still vibrating from the force of his father's backhand on it and in a minute the pain will come rushing through. But for now there is only the floor and the shame.

He turns his eyes down, looking at the dark shadow of his head against the pale, cracking linoleum. It is early; the sun is peering through the windows like it can't wait to run tell everyone what it has seen. He can hear a couple kids laughing up the street and dogs barking and the neighbor's car turning over.

His mom and Nate are at the dentist. She fought with Dad about money again because there wasn't enough again and the dentist didn't want to charge any more to their account. That's why he was in a bad mood. There was always a why behind his fists.

He wants to curl up tighter because his face really hurts now. His eye is throbbing like someone jabbed a pencil in it and it will be black by tomorrow.

But there's shame in the hurt, in the feeling of pain and its inherent weakness. There's shame in fear, too, and in his flickering belief that if he could be- just be _something_, _someone else_, maybe then...

Anger is a safe emotion, and so is pride. So is hate.

He stands up, locking the knees that are like knots of wood on his stick legs. He presses his hand to his face for a minute, thinking, "Son of a bitch," one of his father's expressions. Then he walks to the cabinet, reaches up and grabs a bag of cereal. He is eating a bowl of it, leaning against the counter with his feet crossed.

He doesn't realize how insolent this must have seemed; when the thought occurs to him years later, he hopes it drove the old man crazy. Michael always remembers the look, the first look, in his eyes. Shock and anger. There he is, unbroken. Eight years old, eating cereal with bruises coming up on his face.

But then the second look comes. The smugness of power and the driving fuel of hate and resentment behind it. _You are nothing._

"You never know when to quit, do you?"

He does not respond. He looks into his bowl like the soggy chocolate-covered flakes and tinted-brown milk will defend him.

"Did you ask me if you could have any breakfast? Huh?"

"No, sir." Sullen.

"Put it down." He shakes his head, seeming so disgusted it makes Michael's stomach twist like he's going to vomit. "You useless little shit," he sighs. The unspoken words: What punishment is this to put up with you, boy?

And then he is a giant advancing toward him, slowly. His father is tall. Even when Michael left home he hadn't caught up. His approach feels like the clouds closing in, erasing all the sun and the blue from the sky.

Michael raises the spoon to his mouth. He takes a bite.

His father's eyes flash and narrow and he knocks the bowl out of his hands. They grapple for a moment, sweatily, Michael trying to smack his father's hands away. Maybe it was only a few seconds, but for him it felt like half an hour. And then the huge hands close over the sleeves of his t-shirt and his father shakes.

Snap! Snap! His head jerking back and forth.

When he raises his hand, his fist this time, Michael feels the shame pour through him, and he has no defense against this either, and he wants to cry, he is so young, but he does not even close his eyes.


	2. Godforsaken

2. Godforsaken

_Central Florida: Present Day_

You never get completely used to looking in the eyes of someone who wants you dead, but Fiona Glenanne had more practice than most. So far tonight, she had seen twosets of eyes that screamed, "We need an Irish head for our mantle." The first were crazy, batshit crazy as Americans said, and at least that was something. She looked down and flexed her hand. She had reset the four fingers the crazy bitch had snapped and still making a decent fist burned like a mother.

"She really is completely fucking batshit," the man aiming the sawed-off shotgun at her head said conversationally. He smiled with a huge open mouth, like a shark. Threads of bloody spit, from where Fiona's boot heel had knocked out his teeth, dangled between his lips. "I think she might have been jealous," he bent forward and confided softly. "Maybe she noticed... something." His eyes were all over her tits, greasier than the sweat in this godforsaken pit.

_Godforsaken_, she laughed to herself. _Exactly it. _

"Sorry, perverted freaks who rape desperate women and use their own _children _for power don't do anything for me. Better luck next time, not that you're going to have one." She was scanning the room behind him, looking for a weapon. Her Sig was on the other side of the room and though she could conceivably reach it if she planned right, her hand was damaged enough that she might not be able to get a kill shot off in the first try.

"Oh, Valerie, Valerie," he began, then tilted his head. "You're not a Valerie, are you?"

"Trying to get close to me? Which name are you going to leave on my dance card?"

"Touche," he grinned again. He moved toward her and she feinted right, diving behind a dresser. It wasn't much against a shotgun, but it was better than thin air. "Steven," he said, raising the gun higher, pointing at her chest. "My poor Mama named me for Steve McQueen. She might have liked a girl like you."

"Even after I leave bits of her son all over this room?" She moved toward the door. He raised the gun to her head and made a tsking sound. At this range, it would take off her head and most of her chest and shoulders too. She stopped.

"You never told me your name."

"Keep calling me Valerie, I've gotten used to it."

"I thought it was suspicious, you and your husband showing up when you did, but the way you looked at him?" Steven inched closer. Fiona forced her limbs to relax, not to tighten and shake with adrenaline, and readied herself. "It seemed like you two were really in love." He smiled again, a cruel thin one. "Where are you going to bury him, have you thought about that?"

"Next to you," she muttered. She did not think about Michael. She would not.

"I wish I had a smaller gun. I'd love to fuck you," his eyes went to her tits again, "but not with your pretty face blown off. Ah, well. Mabye I'll be assigned to guard your sty in hell."

"And maybe I'll get to rape you with a blowtorch," she returned, and sprang up, kicking with everything she had at his face. They fell to the ground together.

**Author's Note: **I don't want to say too much, but I will quote one of my favorite movies and say that, "Everything can and will be explained. All mysteries, penetrated." The rest of it should be pretty straight-forward, time-wise at least. If there are any particular things you want to see, please let me know! And how much is this season rocking so far? The past few episodes have had great Michael/Fi moments. Love, love, love it!


	3. Miss Manners of Firearms

**Author's Note**: Like I said, no more jumping around in time. (Jumping around in bed? Yes!) I hope to post chapter four tomorrow; I know this is another short one. Huge sloppy thank yous to all the reviews and alerters. Y'all rock my world.

3. The Miss Manners of Firearms

_Miami: The Recent Past_

Someone was opening his door. Michael was reaching for the nearest gun when Fiona poked her head in. He settled back into his chair. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved that his visitor wasn't going to kill him or be afraid that, since it was Fiona, he was in for something worse.

He hadn't seen or spoken to her in two days, which was becoming less unusual. She didn't seem particularly chatty this morning either. She wandered in and studied the view from the window like it was something new and exciting.

"Want to meet someone about a job?" she came out with at last, so abruptly he thought he imagined it.

"What kind of job?" He set his papers aside and turned to her.

"The today kind. Come on, we have to be there in twenty minutes." She was wearing one of those dresses where the skirt looked like a skirt but was actually shorts. Tiny, tight, red shorts, to be precise, and precision was a life-or-death matter for a spy.

Then she proceeded to slide her sunglasses onto her nose and dig a .380 out of her purse. It didn't break the mood as much as an outsider might expect.

"I'm not going out with you and your gun until I know something more than 'the today kind.'" He followed the line of her legs all the way up to the muscled thighs he knew were as soft as her lips and just as delicious. She cocked her right hip out, looking like the hottest pin-up _Guns & Ammo _never had._ She does this on purpose_, he thought and hated her a little.

"That's all I know. The man who contacted me said he would reveal all today, et cetera et cetera. He knows a friend of mine from back home."

Now Michael's back really went up. He studied her face through narrowed eyes. Fiona's Irish friends fit into two general categories: the people you didn't want to meet in a dark alley, and the ones you didn't want to meet in the light of day either. "Who?"

"No one you would know." He bared his teeth and they stared hard at each other. "I'm not going to put this to your head and force you there," she finally declared with a twirl of her gun, sounding as if she had considered doing just that. "I'll call someone else."

"Yeah, who? Never mind," he told her, shaking his head when she opened his mouth to answer. "I don't want to know who else is on your speed dial." He stood up and caught the edge of her smile as she turned away.

"We're meeting him at a restaurant at the Riordan-Wainwright downtown, so I think your Glock would make just the right statement."

"And if this were a meeting in a deserted warehouse, what would you recommend?" he asked as he pulled out the gun and quickly checked it over.

She rose up on her toes, pulling her hem a few precious inches higher. Not that he noticed. "A Remington 870. Pump-action."

He hooked his gun in his white pants and tugged his suit jacket back down. As he locked up and they walked down the stairs, hethought up the most bizarre situations he could, but she had an answer for everything. When he finally drew a blank, Fiona let out a laugh. "Face it, Michael, I'm like the Miss Manners of firearms."

He was in front of her, and he stopped so abruptly that she almost bumped in to him, catching herself with a hand on his waist. "Miss Manners?" he asked, looking back at her over his shoulder as the sun lit up her eyes.

"My mother once had these plans to turn me into a proper lady." Then she took her hand away.


	4. The Meet

4. The Meet

"I'm here to see Alexander."

The discreetly gorgeous maitre'd nodded without sparing a glance at the reservation book. "Of course. Mr. Levin informed us you would be arriving. Madam, you and your associate may come right this way." He opened the door and ushered them in.

The Riordan-Wainwright Hotel and Resort was as snooty and exclusive as its name implied. Fi and Michael didn't fit with the dress code, the clientele, or the intended ambiance. The fact that they were getting the VIP treatment meant Levin, whoever he was, had some serious pull.

The hotel restaurant was a large, well-appointed room with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the hotel's private beach. It was also completely empty, save for a man and woman sitting in the very back.

The woman had her back to them, so Michael took Alexander's measure as he stood to greet them.

"It is my great pleasure to see you again," Alexander said gallantly. He had a surprisingly high, feminine voice that was at odds with his appearance. He was a few inches taller than Michael, and firmly built, with a sweep of silver hair and piercing dark eyes. Michael placed his accent as Russian, with a choppy overlay of British English.

"You told me to bring an associate," Fiona told him after the maitre'd left. "This is Michael Westen."

"Of course. Michael," Alexander shook his hand. "My wife," he continued, gesturing to the seated woman. She rose and turned to face them.

"Hello, Fiona." Michael watched as Fiona placed the woman's face. They were of an age but completely different types. She was statesque and attractive in a very pale, very rich way. Her purpley-blue eyes were her best feature; for a moment, looking at Fiona, she smiled, and they shone with good humor and fun.

"Medb. It's been a long time." Fi smiled slightly in return, genuinely, from what Michael could tell. "I can't even see it anymore," she said, glancing at Medb's forehead. "I always told you it would fade."

"After two decades and some plastic surgery!"

"You and Fi worked together," Michael guessed.

"No, we were at school together." Medb touched a spot on her forehead. "Fiona convinced me to build a potato cannon when we were in fourth year. We demonstrated it in science class. She took out Daisy O'Doyle's diorama of the solar system and a piece of Saturn's rings sliced my head."

Fi grinned at the memory even as she put her hands on her hips. "That only happened because the teacher jerked my arm just before I fired! If it weren't for her, it would have worked perfectly."

Medb laughed. "So you said every afternoon they had us clapping erasers behind the building as a punishment." She gestured for them to sit, as she did.

A waiter instantly appeared at Alexander's elbow and poured out the wine, followed by another who placed an immaculate, lovingly constructed salad in front of each of them. Fi and Medb began to eat. Michael wondered if there would be a steak course.

Alexander smiled at the waiter and nodded, a graceful dismissal.

"We would have met in a more low-key environment, but Alexander is quite fond of the food here," Medb said as she brushed her husband's hand. "I was so sorry to hear of your family's trouble, Fiona. As well as the circumstances that necessitated your move to Miami."

"You know me," Fiona said lightly, as the waiter re-appeared to refill her water glass. "I adjust."

"My wife said you were the most frightening girl she ever knew, and that one day you saved her life," Alexander spoke up at last.

"Hardly," Fi replied lightly. She and Medb exchanged looks, and she put down her fork to turn to Michael and explain. "When we were fifteen, there was an older boy in our neighborhood who got it in his head that he was some kind of bad-ass. He used to sit behind girls on the bus with his hand down his pants, pinch their asses on the street, like that." She waved her hand dismissively, but Michael would bet all the yogurt in his fridge there was a darker story buried behind the gesture. "So one day I was walking home and I saw him follow Medb down an alley. I intervened, as anyone would have. Luckily, I was in my steel-toed boots phase at the time." She examined her nails. "He didn't sit for a month."

Michael and Alexander shifted slightly in their seats.

Alexander cleared his throat. "We would like to hire you, both of you, to assist us with a situation." He reached into his jacket, and Fi and Michael went still until they realized he was only removing a piece of paper. Alexander laid it face-down on the table, and continued, "Of course, we will compensate you for your time and expertise." She grabbed it before Michael could, and then raised her eyebrows. She crossed her fingers, then tapped one on the table twice. Part of their old codes- five zero zero. Five thousand dollars.

"What kind of situation is this?" he asked, looking from Alexander to Medb, who was watching her husband .

"It's a family matter, and it requires very delicate handling. From a particular skill set." Other than wiring explosives, Michael wasn't sure he had ever seen Fiona delicately do anything, but he nodded. "Medb thought we needed someone we could trust. It was a happy coincidence that you were in Miami, Fiona. And you, Michael. We looked into your background, not extensively," he added, when Michael looked up sharply. "To make sure we could trust you. I've been reassured by what we found." He fell silent again, looking out the window at the people on the beach.

Medb said something to him in Russian. Her accent was terrible, but Michael had heard worse. "She knows about sisters. Tell them."

Alexander looked back to them. "My sister's child was stolen. I need you to recover it."


	5. The Job

**Author's Note: **So... here we go again. Michael and Fiona aren't mine (sadly), everyone else is.

"Start from the beginning," Michael said, giving up on the salad after eating something that looked like a tulip and tasted like grass.

"Is this a custody thing between your sister and this group?" Fiona inquired. Michael understood why- nothing got messier faster than domestic stuff, especially when it involved kids.

"Not precisely," Alexander replied. "My younger sister, Olga, had certain... difficulties that made her lifestyle unstable." Michael caught Alexander's eye for a moment, and he read between the lines: drugs.

Fiona nodded, also understanding. "That can happen."

"There was a period of time, several years, when we did not speak. Last month, she showed up at one of my businesses in Miami. As it happened, the manager of that operation has been with me for many years. He recognized Olya's accent when she spoke in Russian. It is distinctive." Michael nodded, and Alexander looked at him curiously.

"The Republic of Karelia, outside Petrozavodsk," Michael said. "You learned English from a native of Britain."

"Yes, we had an uncle who married a woman from Liverpool. Terrible thick accent. We could never understand her Russian, so we spoke her language at their home." He seemed pleased, and began to speak more freely. "The manager believed Olya when she claimed to be my sister. Medb and I live in London most of the year, but he contacted me and I was able to speak with her through our video conference. She told me what I thought was an unbelievable story."

One of the waiters returned with a silver cart, and Michael held out hope for a 20 oz Porterhouse. Instead he got a bowl of fish soup. Well-made fish soup- as much as any fish soup can be well-made and still remain fish soup. Alexander had apparently special ordered it, because he picked up his spoon and began to eat for the first time.

"What did she tell you?" Fi asked.

Medb took over with a sigh. "It was hard to understand. It was the middle of the night in London and she kept jumbling her languages together. She claimed that she had met some people on the streets, a church group that gave food and medical care to the homeless. They told her about their shelter; they said they could find a job for her there. It wasn't in the city. She agreed to go with them. She said she wanted to get away from people here who were looking for her. But once she was out there- well, it was a small town. Isolated. She couldn't seem to leave. There was a man, someone who worked with the church. He gave her things. With strings attached.

"She wasn't sure how long she was there, but one day, The Woman- that was what Olga called her, The Woman- came to her room. She told her that she knew about Olga and this man. That Olga was carrying his baby because it was ordained by God, the baby would be a blessing for people in the church and it was meant to be this way. After that, they kept her confided to her room. They monitored her condition and when it was time for her baby to be born, they even had a nurse come and deliver it. Then they took the baby away, and Olga never saw it again. They never even told her what it was, a boy or a girl."

Fiona watched Alexander as Medb spoke. He fisted his hand on the table when she spoke about the man, but he forced himself to unclench his fingers, one by one. He pressed his hand flat, until it was almost as white as the tablecloth under it. The gesture and the thwarted vengeance inside it were familiar, and it stabbed her through the heart.

"She was sure that they were going to kill her once the baby was born, but then the man came back and drove her into the city. He gave her some money and left her where they found her. When she ran out of money she decided to come and try to find us."

There was a silence, which Michael broke with, "I assume you found reason to believe this story."

"When we tried to question her further," Alexander took up the story, "she became very agitated. I asked her, I kept asking if it this was the truth. She finally screamed that she knew no one would ever believe her. Then she ran out of the building, into the street. There was a car coming." He took a long sip of wine. "She died almost immediately. At the autopsy, they found evidence Olya had given birth recently."

"There must have been an investigation," Fi said quietly. "What did the police find out?"

"They found the town where she was kept, and the group. It's called the Church of the Lord's Tomorrow. It's in a small town a few hours south of here."

"You contacted them?" Michael asked sharply.

"No, only the police," Alexander assured him. "The church said she came to them pregnant, on drugs. They tried to rehabilitate her. She agreed to give the baby up, to a family in their congregation. The police said they even had a video of her signing the adoption papers to support their claims."

"Are you sure that isn't what happened?" Michael asked.

Alexander didn't have to shake his head; he fixed his gaze on Michael intently and spoke in a low voice. His accent grew thicker. "When my sister was young, our parents died. I was responsible for her, to care for her. When I came home one night, she told me she was pregnant. That there was a boy in the city that she loved. How they had plans to care for their baby, to raise it." He looked out the window again, watching at the families on the beach. "I did what I thought was best. I took her to a doctor and he concluded the problem. I told her she was too young, and one day she would see that I was right. It was best this way. She- she never forgave me. Things were not the same between us. I think that was why she didn't come to me right away when this happened. Olya would never, _never _willingly give up her child. I told this to the police, but I was not convincing to them. People trust like, I find. The sheriff of the city is a member of the church, and he was quite reassuring to the Miami officials."

Michael drummed his fingers on the table, considered the offer, and gave up the hope of steak. "So you would like us to approach this group."

Alexander and Medb nodded at once. "We have files prepared for you with all the information we have," he said. "I could have them delivered to you this afternoon."

"The quickest way to do it," Fi said confidently, "is for me to go in as an addict and get the same bastard who approached your sister to come to me. Michael could wire me, monitor the situation. Once we get proof, the whole thing is exposed." She shrugged. "It'd be hard for the church to survive that kind of scandal."

"But that wouldn't necessarily get Olya's baby put in our custody, would it?" Medb asked.

"Actually," Michael replied, "it's possible they would admit under questioning what happened with your sister, and the adoptive parents would have to surrender the baby."

"No, it won't work," Alexander insisted. "I am sorry, but we cannot trust the police to obtain the necessary information. If we could rely on them to do their jobs we would not be here now. We need hard proof that they did what Olya said. People in the church know what happened. Some of them _must_. You gain their trust and you can question them. The whole thing must be destroyed. You find the man who did it, you find the root- then you find her baby."

Fi and Michael exchanged glances. Dealing with clients who had money could be a lot more difficult than the hopeless, broke ones. Rich people were more accustomed to giving orders and getting their desires followed to the letter. They were also more sensitive to any hint of criticism. Michael leaned back and tried to speak diplomatically. "To get members of the church to open up to us, they would have to believe we were one of them. I could try to present myself as a recent convert, but if I push it too hard, they could get suspicious and close down."

"Actually," Medb said tentatively, "we were thinking about a different approach. We think you and Fi should go in together."

Michael felt Fi tense beside her, and he spoke before she could open her mouth. "If you have something planned for us already, just lay it out."

Alexander swallowed another spoonful of fish soup and smiled sedately. "We would like to set up identities for you as a happily married couple, settling down away from the big city."

**Author's Note (Again): **Whaaaaaaat? Oh yeah. They're gonna be undercover and fake-married! Squeals of excitement? Gasps of dismay? Please, please comment and let me know what you like/hate/are indifferent to. I hope to have chapter six up tomorrow, which will feature lots of Sam.


	6. That Sounds Like It'll Work Out Great

**Author's Note:** The next chapter is in metaphorical bits and pieces on the floor, so I probably won't post until Monday. Pleeeeeaaase review! Even if it's just "Where is the smut, already?" you will make me happy. (The answer to that is one chapter away, maybe two.)

Sam was whistling as he climbed up the stairs to Michael's place, tapped on the door, and swung in. He had his mind set on a cold beer and recap of his adventures with his newest lady love the night before. He was surprised to be met with Michael and Fi standing at the counter, looking through a stack of papers in silence.

_'There is definitely something crooked going on between those two. Ah, the course of true love, blah blah.'_

"Hey guys. Fi, will ya toss me a cold one?" She didn't look his way, just leaned over, opened the refrigerator, and threw the beer at his head. Sam caught it handily, but frowned. "Whoa, did your favorite line of bullets get discontinued or something?" Fi took out a bottle for herself and downed half of it. "Okay, you two are messing with my mid-afternoon buzz. If the world is ending, tell me now so I can restock the fridge."

"Michael and I are going undercover as a married couple to infiltrate a church that kidnapped a Russian drug addict and then stole her baby to turn it into some kind of God warrior." With that, Fi drank the rest of the beer, Michael flipped over another page, and they both waited for Sam's reaction.

He didn't disappoint. "Oh, like _hell _you are! Whatever you two do in your spare time is your business and frankly, not something I want to know about or think about, but anyone who's met you should know that if you have to pretend to be married, you're going to _blow each other up_! You'll be Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but with cheaper clothes and a higher body count!"

"They're paying us five hundred thousand dollars, Sam," Michael interrupted.

He paused. Took a long sip of beer. "Huh. Okay. Yeah, that sounds like it'll work out great."

"Thanks for your support."

"Anytime, buddy."

Michael briefly ran through the assignment for Sam.

"Apparently Alexander has enough minions at his disposal that they've gotten basic backgrounds on every member of the church," Fi said, pointing to the stacks of files on Michael's table.

"It's a lot of intel to sift through," Michael agreed. Fi raised her eyebrows at him and they turned together to Sam.

He sat down at the table, hauled a stack into his lap, and toasted them with his bottle of beer. "Like I've always said, if you've got the money, honey, I've got the time."

"I've known you for years and I've never heard you say that," Michael said.

"That's because _you_ never have any money, my friend."

"This is the information on our set-up in town," Fi told Michael, sliding the papers over to him. He gave them a cursory once-over and nodded. "He rented us a house," she mused to herself, picking up a color photo. "Very American Rustic. Purchased in the names of... Michael and Valerie Newman." She looked at them in outrage.

"You're a Mike, Mike. Your friends are creative."

"I am not a Valerie!" Fi sputtered. "Valerie? They couldn't even make me a Veronica or an Esmeralda- something with a little flair to it?"

The two men tilted their heads, trying to see it. "I knew a Valerie once," Sam ruminated with a distant smile on his face. "She-"

"Is this going to completely ruin the name for me?"

"- worked in a nightclub in Brazil," he continued, undaunted.

"Isn't this the beginning to a Barry Manilow song?"

"She was singing in this smoky room-"

"No, I think this is Journey," Michael said.

"Wearing this amazing silver dress, which, when the spotlight hit her, was completely-"

"Michael, that was a semi-modern, sort of ironic pop culture reference. I'm impressed."

"Okay, okay, I can see I'm not going to get to finish this story, which is your loss, because believe me, it was a doozy. Just give me the rundown on this church thing. It's not one of those thetan-alien cults is it? Or the aliens-on-a-comet, everyone-wearing-jumpsuits deals? They have the creepiest eyes."

"From what they told us," Michael said, moving to the refrigerator and taking out a yogurt, "it started as a women's group for the local church. A local woman ran it out of her garage."

"Apparently she's very charismatic." Fiona fished out a sheet of paper. "This is her," she said, passing it to Sam. "Zoe Cimini Krzewski."

"It doesn't feel like a con, even a long one," Michael said. He ate a spoonful of yogurt and glanced at the picture Sam was holding: a pleasant-faced woman in her late 50s, wearing a modest shirt and a gold cross necklace against the bright blue of the DMV backdrop. "This woman has lived in Mornington all her life. She married a local guy and worked as a secretary at the bank until three years ago."

"Her husband died young," Fi remarked, "her first husband. Three years ago, she got remarried. We don't have much information on him." She pulled out another photo and Sam peered at it.

"Oh, man," he remarked. "Let me guess: geometry teacher." The man had what looked like a shellacked toupee on his head, accompanied by thick glasses and a full beard and mustache.

"Close," Fi said. "Ike Krzewski, chemistry teacher at Mornington High. He'd only lived in town for six months or so when he and Zoe got married."

"Where'd he move from?" Sam asked.

"The only thing in the file is a Minnesota teaching license issued twenty-five years ago. Nothing notable between this license and his move to Florida. Never married- before Zoe, anyway- no kids, no criminal record."

"All right, guys, so to sum up, a bank secretary and a chemistry teacher have, according to your friends, gone completely off the fucking rails and started stealing babies from Russian drug addicts."

"Only one that we know of, Sam, but other than that, yeah."

"They don't make supervillains like they used to," he shrugged. "Though, from what I remember of chemistry class, I wouldn't put anything past Mrs. Trudeau."

"I was excellent at chemistry," Fiona informed them in a lofty voice.

"It started three years ago," Michael mused. He had flipped over the folder in his lap and was constructing a rough timeline on the back. "Right after Zoe and Ike got married, the local preacher died and Zoe took over the church. I'm going to get the police reports on his death; it's too coincidental in timing not to be connected."

"If there was some kind of foul play involved, it wouldn't be the first time the police covered something up for Zoe and her church." Fi threw a folder down with a sigh. "Casual brutality under the cover of religion. Almost makes me miss home."

"And here you are, going undercover again, Michael," Sam smirked. He was surprised when Fi didn't offer a single snide comment or even a glare in response. Instead, she moved back to the refrigerator, opened the door and stood there like she was examining the contents. _Huh. _"How are you guys going to handle being married, anyway?"

"What's to handle?" Michael said absently, his mind still on the pages in front of him. "It's a job. We'll be fine. Grab me a water, Fi?" No one responded. "Fi?"

"Of course we'll be fine," she said, finally turning to face him with a broad smile. She handed him the bottle. "It's not like this is our first time."

Michael nodded, looking too wary to say anything else. He looked back down at the files again, but Sam noticed him watching her as she moved to the table.

"Just don't come back acting like Ward and June Cleaver."

"That is becoming increasingly unlikely, Sam," Fi replied. She didn't glance at either of them, just picked up a file and retreated back to the oasis of the case. "According to this, the local cable access channel records and shows the church services regularly, for members who can't make the actual masses. We should try to get copies."

"I know a guy in the local news division," Sam said. "They're all incestuous, I'm sure he knows somebody who knows somebody who can send me copies."

"Oh, Sam," Fi began, in a tone that made his eyes narrow, "this is the press about the church's activities." She threw a folder stuffed with black and white copies of newspaper articles into his lap. "When you're watching the tapes, you should try to identify the the major players in the church. See who we need to get in with when we get to town."

"Yeah, thanks, Fi, because I've never run an op before," he said sarcastically. He glanced at the photo. "Great: bad perms and polyester. This is gonna be fun." He smiled suddenly and turned to Michael. "Speaking of which, what's your Ma going to say about this?"

Michael looked up at the ceiling with a long-suffering expression. Then he caught Fi's eye. "Do _not _tell her about the marriage part. I'm not kidding," he added, when she gave him a bland stare.


	7. The Tough One

7. The Tough One

"Maddie, your son is finally making an honest woman of me."

"Wow. I don't think I've ever heard your mother make that noise before, Mike. It's like one of those whistles only dogs can hear."

He muttered something under his breath and looked behind him to watch his mother embrace Fiona, actually rocking her back and forth. _Was she crying? Oh, crap, this is bad._

"Oh! Fiona! Oh! This is- oh! Michael, honey! Get over here!"

He hadn't heard his mom speak solely in exclamation points for years. From the look on Fiona's face when Maddie finally released her, he could tell she wasn't expecting his mother to react quite so enthusiastically either. She touched her arms where Maddie's fingers had dug in, and Michael watched, frowning. He wasn't able to dodge quickly enough when his mom came for him, arms outstretched. She squeezed him so tightly he almost dropped her out of reflex.

"This is the happiest day of my life!" she shrieked, gripping his hand and Fi's and linking them into a circle.

"Mom. Mom, she's kidding. We are not getting married."

"Oh." She dropped their hands and sighed. "Damn it. I should have guessed it was too good to be true. And I dropped my cigarette."

"Sorry, Maddie," Fi said, having the good sense to look slightly abashed.

"What exactly is going on?" She took out another cigarette and lit it.

"Work. A job."

"When _isn't _it work?" She exhaled and sighed at once, her exasperation filling the room along with the smoke. She looked over at Fiona, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. Fi didn't look particularly upset to him, but his mother's face softened and she picked up the bag she'd dropped at the door. "Let's go sit down, and I want to hear some details."

He gave her the sketchiest outline of the situation, leaving Sam to fill in with comments and speculation. His mother had crammed an armload of stuff into her purse, including a thermos of iced tea, which she insisted on serving them.

"That's terrible!" she exclaimed as he took a careful first sip. He coughed to hide his grimace, unsure if she was talking about the drink or what had happened to Olga. Most people wouldn't have thought it possible to screw up a beverage, but most people hadn't killed their taste buds with decades of nicotine abuse (alcohol, in Sam's case). Fiona had her own issues with what she called "American tea" and was wisely only sucking on the ice cubes.

"They just stole this woman's baby and no one did anything about it?" Maddie continued.

"That's why the A-Team is on the job," Sam reassured her. "They'll have this whole thing wrapped up in two weeks tops, be back here stoically refusing to talk about it."

Maddie looked unconvinced, but before she could open her mouth to speak again, Fi clapped her hands on the table. "I have to finish packing. We have to leave tonight."

"Isn't that what you were doing this morning?" Michael frowned. "You've been back there all day."

"Michael, what is my packing order? Guns and miscellaneous weaponry, then explosives, then shoes. But I still have to pack my clothes, my bath-"

"So, what? Another hour?"

"Actually, Medb called and suggested that I go with something a little more conservative, clothing-wise. Like I was planning to show up to church in this," she rolled her eyes, tugging at her vintage Johnny Cash t-shirt and jean shorts. "I have to rummage in my closet."

"Do you need some help?" Maddie asked, pouring Michael's leftover tea back into the thermos and giving him a dirty look. "Oh, I brought along this-" she pulled something else from her bag, a big album this time- "like you asked for."

"Pictures?" Michael said, recognizing it as one of the photo albums his mother tried to make him look through. It still stunned him that she considered the occasions it documented happy enough to warrant remembering. "What are those for?"

"We need some family photos. Married couples don't hatch from an egg or swim out of a lagoon fully-grown. They have backgrounds. Back stories. If you wouldn't mind helping me, Maddie-"

"No, no, I'll be right there." She waved Fiona out of the room, then turned to Michael, her expression stormy. "What's going on between the two of you?" she hissed, slapping at his forearm. "Are you fighting?"

He glanced to Sam for help and found him studying his glass like the iced tea had turned to tea leaves. "No," Michael said, crossing his arms defensively. "Why would we be fighting?"

Sam looked up at that. "You're in a relationship, Michael," he said slowly.

"That's something that normal people have, a connection, that causes heightened emotional responses that sometimes lead to fights," Maddie explained slowly, like she was talking to a slow five-year old or a bright gorilla.

"We're not in that sort of relationship."

Sam snorted. "Yeah. That's why you look for her every time you walk into a room, but you never touch her—"

"And she never touches you anymore." Maddie ashed her cigarette and exchanged looks with Sam. "They are having a fight. I'm going to go talk to Fiona."

"Mom, do not-"

But she was gone.

* * *

In her room, Fiona had clothes splayed across everything that was holding still. She pulled a white turtleneck out of her closet and sighed. Of course Valerie would dress conservatively. She and her husband were moving to this piddling town with the intent and purpose of starting a family. Valerie would probably subscribe to home and gardening magazines and make themed cakes for each of the major holidays. She pulled the shirt off its hanger and tossed it on the bed. She didn't care what anyone said, she was Fiona Glenanne, and she was not using creepy plastic googly eyes in any kind of craft project. Damn it.

She stopped and looked at the top of her vanity. Underneath the pile of shirts and light jackets she'd considered and discarded was a simple, rough wooden box. She worked it out, then slid her hand underneath to the catch for the false bottom.

She hadn't kept many photos. They didn't have a lot of them to start with, being a family with too many growing legs and empty pockets, as her mother always said. But she had a few tattered, faded favorites. She looked down at one: she and her brothers, solid mud up to their chests after playing football in the field behind the church. Their friends had scowled at her when they saw her tagging along.

"You brought your little sister?" one of them scoffed. "She'll go home cryin' the first time she cuts her knee."

That made Sean and Calum howl. "Not her," Calum said. "She's tougher than she looks."

"Aye," Sean said, throwing an arm around Fi's shoulder and pulling her close. "She's a small, fierce one, our Fiona."

She had caught him in the face with an elbow playing defense and broken his nose. He was holding a bloody, snotty rag to it in the picture, and grinning. She beamed at the memory. That was a wonderful day.

"Knock-knock," Maddie called as she came in. "Did you get distracted?"

"Oh, yeah," Fiona laughed, slipping the pictures in her pocket. "Sorry. Do you mind helping me fold some things while I rummage in my closet?"

"Of course, honey." They worked in silence for a few moments, smiling companionably. "Fiona," Maddie said at last, "when you told me you and Michael were getting married, well, even though part of me knew something was up, it was still among the happiest ten seconds of my life." She looked at Fi solemnly, the sun coming through the window and hitting her hair like a halo. "But I'm sorry I made such a big deal about it."

Fiona smiled. "It's not a big deal, Madeline. It was just a joke to piss him off. I'm glad you're not upset."

"Oh, no. No. I just hope _you'_re not upset."

Fi was studying a red dress. It almost counted as plain, if she ignored the thigh-high slit. But red wasn't churchy or conservative enough. She shook her head and hung it up again. "Why would I be upset?"

"All this talk about marriage and family and kids, and you having to pretend to be married to Michael, and, well, I'm not one of those mothers who thinks her son is God's gift to humanity. Michael is a wonderful person in a lot of ways, but he wouldn't know emotional commitment if it pulled a gun on him." She tilted her head, thinking. "Actually, that might be the only way he'd _get _to know it." She folded a pair of slacks and placed them carefully in the suitcase. "I just don't want it to be hard for you, Fiona."

"Maddie." She waited until she turned to look at her. It wasn't the most comfortable conversation to have, but she figured she owed her this. "The marriage part doesn't upset me because I don't want those things."

"Commitment?" she replied, raising her eyebrows.

"What Michael and Valerie Newman want. Marriage. A house. Kids."

She could see by the look on Maddie's face that it hit home. "It's not because of Michael and his burn notice, because-"

"No," Fiona interrupted gently. "I knew it long before I ever met Michael. That isn't for me. I'm not the white fence type."

"Picket fence," Maddie murmured. She focused on the shirt she was folding, then looked back up with a determined smile pasted on her face. "I just want you to be happy, Fiona. You and Michael. Not you and Michael as in you-and-Michael, but both of you. And I don't want to pry, but it seems like things are different between you." She watched as Fi turned away, moving deeper into the closet for a second. She came out with a long black dress on a hanger, but she didn't really look at it.

"It's nothing to worry about, Maddie," she said at last. "I... care for Michael. I don't think I have any choice in that anymore. This job, everything- it's going to be fine." Fi still wasn't quite meeting her eyes, but there was a limit to even friendly quasi-mother-in-law prodding, and Maddie knew it.

"I'm sure you will. Here," she said, placing another shirt in the suitcase and turning to grab the album off the bed. "I'll find you my favorite one."

Fi had seen pictures from Michael's childhood a few times. He was scowling or annoyed or (most often) blank-faced, like he was already gone inside his head, his teenaged body left as a hollow placeholder. Fi hated that look; it made her wonder how often he thought of those moments now. She suspected very rarely, or as rarely as anyone could manage _not _thinking about nearly two decades of his life.

"That dress looks perfect," Maddie said, nodding to the cloth in Fiona's hands as she flipped through the album.

"I wore it when I had to impersonate a nun. Don't ask. Do you think it's right?"

"Oh, church is like in-laws. You can't go wrong with nun-wear. Here," she said at last, pulling a small square off the sticky page. She held it out, then hesitated. "I don't know if he sees it, but you- you make him happy."

"When we're not driving each other mad, we're pretty good at that."

"See, you sound married already," Maddie replied, patting her shoulder. After she left the room, Fi looked down at the photograph: Michael at five years old. It was blurry because he was running, but he was smiling and there was that swaggering tilt to his head, like he was planning to walk out of the frame and take on the world, or at least the playground. It made her grin. That was the Michael she knew. But younger, cockier, and brasher. She pulled her own pictures out of her pocket. After the one of her and her brothers, she had Claire and her mum, Sunday-pressed and solemn in their best dresses. And then Michael, her Irish Michael McBride, sitting next to her in the pub. This was her own favorite Michael picture. She is laughing at something and he is looking down at her. The moment after her friend took it, Michael bent his head and kissed her and everyone in the pub started hooting and applauding. She still remembered the pressure, the outline of his smiling lips against hers, how someone had slapped her back and knocked their noses together.

She closed her eyes and thought about the last time they were together. It started the same as any other. They were coming off the high of a job done well, so he was in a good mood. He kept smiling his genuine smile, the smile from the pictures, not the cheeky-charming-spy-grin he saved for when he needed to distract someone or get out of trouble. He didn't even wait for Sam to leave before he slid his hand along the back of the couch to rub her neck. It made her want to purr. Unsure if she was being provoked or encouraged or both, she walked her bare feet into his lap and gave him a look so blatant even Sam, two and a half sheets to the wind, got the message.

"I just remembered I got a date with Natalie tonight. Yeah, Natalie. I'll tell you guys about it later."

"Bye, Sam," Michael said, never taking his eyes off her.

She thought he called "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," over his shoulder as he left, but she couldn't swear to it.

Something about that night was different. Even thinking about it now, she couldn't step into the exact moment when things started to change, and she didn't know why they had. After Sam left, they made it to the bed, shrugging out of clothes along the way. When they landed, with her on top, like he knew she preferred, Michael was wearing briefs and she had on her panties and t-shirt.

She was kissing him, long, sweet kisses that made her feel weak and dizzy, punctuated by quick bites to his neck or his face. She would pull away in between and watch his face change. His eyes darkened and his pupils got bigger. She licked her swollen lips unconsciously and he did the same. She thought he had an unusually clever tongue- in every sense of the word.

"Should I take my hair down?"

"What?" He sounded confused. Normally Fi shimmied out of all her clothes as quickly as possible. She had gotten hooked somehow- addicted to the feeling of his skin against hers, so hard and so hot. Every scar and bruise, and there were always plenty of each, telling her that here, _this _was the one man who could challenge her. The one who was her equal.

"I don't want you to get too sweaty," she purred. "With my hair falling all over you." She raised her hands to toy with her ponytail. She could feel her nipples straining against the soft fabric of her t-shirt. Michael's gaze dropped to them, so hungry it made her shudder. He cupped her through her shirt, teased his thumbs over them.

"Yes."

"What?"

"Take your hair down." He looked up at her, and there was something child-like in his face. A trust, an openness that took her breath away. Sometimes, when he was at his most desperate and broken, there were hints of it, but even then the famous Michael Westen defenses had been lurking in the background. Whenever she got too close, they slammed down on her fingers.

But now, for whatever reason, he was laying there and watching her patiently, like he could do just that forever. She let herself slide down, grinding her center against his. Fi was very aware that two thin layers of cotton were all that separated them, but Michael kept looking up at her. His hands were eager and playful over her body, plucking at her nipples, tracing the muscles in her legs, skimming just inside her panties. But he was waiting. Finally, she took her ponytail down, shaking her hair around her shoulders and striking a vapid pin-up model pose that made him laugh. As if in repayment, he tugged her shirt up and off and then she bent to him again.

"Michael," she panted a few minutes later, breaking their kiss as he groaned. She bit his shoulder, scratching her nails down his muscled chest and flat stomach to cradle him. He knew her body too well, her weaknesses, and he exploited every one- soothing her with one hand while he teased her with the other. Her muscles felt electrified, glowing. They were both naked now.

The inside of her mouth tasted like him, and she was open to him, her stomach and hips pressed to his so she could feel his crisp hair and the sweat on his skin. She could feel her wetness coating the smooth head and thick length of his cock as he teased her entrance. "Tired- waiting- now," she told him, leaning and letting her body pull him in. She was greedy, every part of her. She ran her hands, lips, teeth over him, even as she felt herself stretching to accomodate him.

Finally, they were there, skin to skin. Every nerve ending lept for joy in recognition. No one had ever filled her like he did. No one had ever read her well enough to find every spot that brought her to incineration. She saw his throat move, knew he was struggling to take deep breaths, to relax. She grabbed his shoulders and squeezed, needing so badly to ride him. But he took her hand, kissed it. He held her hips still, forcing her to feel. "Feel that," he whispered, the only thing he said during. "So perfect." He shook- his voice, his body.

It was like being cracked open. She tilted her head back and cried out, and he must have liked it, the sound of her voice or the arch of her neck, because she could feel him grow even harder inside her.

She was muttering things the whole time, and later she'd barely be able to remember them. But she never forgot the moment she pressed her lips to his ear and because it was so slow and so much and so good, she said it: "I love you."

She remembered he closed his eyes for a moment, his hands squeezing her hard enough to bruise. When he opened them, he began to move inside her. She framed his head with her hands, unable to look away. The bodies met wetly, a little roughly. He looked at her, drawing her into him, so deep it was like falling endlessly.

But it was what happened afterwards, after he exploded inside her and pulled her close to bury his face against her neck, that killed her. He slid out of her and rolled her over. And then he smiled, and touched his lips to hers, and he slept in her arms, his head against her chest. She never thought she would have that with him. She fell asleep smelling and tasting and touching and feeling him, so happy.

The next morning, she woke up and he had his head in the refrigerator in the kitchen. He had just finished a work-out. "Hey," she said, sitting up. Her hair was a pile of knots she would spend the rest of the day trying to fix, and she didn't even care.

"Morning, Fi," he turned back to her and smiled. His charm smile. She felt her stomach clench. "Or afternoon. I thought you'd never get up. Don't we have the meeting with Barry this afternoon? At the Monico?" He brought her a bottle of water as he stood beside the bed eating yogurt.

She gulped the water, spilling some of it on his sheets. His eyes were guarded, the way they had always been. "Yeah," she muttered, "at three. What time is it?" She pushed her hair out of her face, trying to climb out of bed and look for her clothes without touching him. She wanted to go home.

"Just past one. Do you want to stay?" He brushed her arm, but she didn't even have to look at him to know the offer was half-hearted. Things were contracting back. Maybe it took a little longer this time, but here they were: Michael Westen's survival instincts. She would have the thin slices of him he gave her, and nothing more.

She left that day, went home and showered, and went to the meeting like nothing had happened. She stopped calling him, and she knew he noticed. She stopped touching him in the casual way they had, stopped inviting his touches with her flirty looks, stopped dropping by unexpectedly, stopped volunteering so much information.

Fiona flipped back to the first picture. She and her brothers, her bruiser-knights. She was tough- not for a girl, for anyone. Tougher than she looked. That was how she got by in the world, how she made her name. By being tough and fierce and fearless and maybe a little crazy (even the people who liked her would say that), but decent, a keeper of her own moral code. No matter what came, even if he held her away forever, she would keep her heart, her tough, fierce heart, whole. It wouldn't break for anyone who kept his closed against her.

**Author's Note:** That killed me dead. I hope it killed you too. (In a good way.) I probably won't post again until Thursday or Friday, but then you'll get to meet the church-going folks who make up the rest of the story. And that gives y'all plenty of time to read and review, read and review, read and review! Thank you to everyone who has! You keep me slaving away. And if there's anything you think I should be slaving away on (requests?), let me know!


	8. A Professional Job

**AN:**I'm overwhelmed by the amazing, lovely reviews I've gotten. You guys are wonderfuller than wonderful. Please keep letting me know what you think! I'm going to try for another update on Tuesday.

**8. A Professional Job**

"They're going to be like that the whole way," Maddie muttered to Sam under her breath.

"I think they need to get laid."

"Sam!"

"I just don't think it would hurt is all I'm saying."

"Shows what you know. Sex is not the problem between those two."

"Yeah, but would it _fix _the problem? That's the question."

"Despite what you like your lady-friends to believe, no, sex does _not _fix everything."

And nothing could not have been further from Michael and Fiona's minds at the time. They were loading up the last of their bags in their rented SUV- Alexander and Medb had given them a generous advance on their payment to cover incidentals- and arguing furiously. It was late afternoon, and the thought of a two hour drive ahead appealed only slightly more than running into Management in line at the movies.

"If five is good, why wouldn't twelve be better? Give me one situation where that isn't true!"

"Huh, how about when it's five against one? And," he continued, cutting off her response, "whether it's better isn't relevant. It's pointless. You have two hands and you can't shoot with your feet-"

"Sure about that?" she growled, her hands on her hips.

"So why do you need twelve guns?" They stared each other down like they were two cowboys in a spaghetti Western and Maddie wouldn't have been surprised to see them draw simultaneously and collapse in the dirt. She cleared her throat, and when they didn't look over, poked a sharp finger into Sam's stomach.

"Ow. Oh, yeah. Guys, Fi, I need to tell you something important. About the job." She reluctantly tore her gaze from Michael's face and looked pointedly at Sam.

"Okay, when you get down there, you need to get invited to the church's women's group. All the major players- well, all the women, that is- go to that. It's held on Wednesday nights, during the practice for the local kids' baseball league."

"Sam, Wednesday is tomorrow. You expect me to get an invitation to a," she wrinkled her nose, looking like the very idea pained her, "women's group on my first day in town?"

"Use your Irish charm," he grinned. "And, Mike, that would be a great opportunity for you to hang out with Ike, Pastor Zoe's devoted husband. He's one of the coaches in the league."

Fiona cracked her biggest grin in days at the thought of Michael surrounded by a bunch of kids launching projectiles at him and each other. They'd be lucky if they all survived.

"All right," Maddie said, "enough shop talk. Let's have a proper goodbye for a minute, please." She hugged Fiona briefly. "Take care of yourself, sweetie."

"You too, Maddie." She surprised them both by leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek. "I'll see you soon."

"And Michael? Be. Careful. I want you to come back with the same number of fingers and toes as you're leaving with, and no major holes in the rest of you."

"Yeah, I'll try, Mom." She hugged him briefly and he patted her back. They didn't even have a goodbye like this when he left for the Army, and of all the regrets he had in his life, missing that wasn't one of them. "O...kay," he said, easing away. "We have to go. Two hour drive. Bye, Sam."

"Later, buddy. If you need me, I'm only a phone call away. I can come up there and be your wacky accordion-playing next-door neighbor. Now, I'm still waiting on my IRS contact to get back to me about the church's finances. I'll probably give you a call on that end tomorrow."

Fi and Michael climbed in and buckled their seat belts. She waved goodbye one more time to Sam and Maddie while Michael switched the GPS on and loaded in the address. Fi took out one of the files Sam had compiled, stuck her iPod earbuds in, and settled back. "Let me know when you want to switch," she said, not looking over.

"Right."

The skills that made a good spy a great one weren't especially unique; they applied to a lot of professions, even to something as benign as being a secretary: the ability to project a calm demeanor when faced with imminent melt-downs, a relentless attention to detail, and the ability to multi-task. It was the situations that a spy had to employ these skills in that made it a more demanding job than, say, working the front desk at an ad agency. Michael had translated documents from Arabic to Russian with an AK-47 pointed at his head. He'd scaled a twenty-foot high wall while taking pictures of a nuclear research facility and (mostly) avoiding twelve iron-jawed North Korean guards. And now, as he drove the highways and back roads that led to Mornington, Florida, he went over the details of their plan in his head and he thought about Fiona. More specifically, about how the whole interior of the car smelled like her hair, and what a fucking idiot he was to agree to any job that would put them in bed together every night, five hundred thousand dollars or no.

Then she would sigh or shift so the strap of her top slid off her shoulder, and even that thought would fade.

As they neared in on two hours and their destination, Fi put down the last file and took her headphones out. She had only listened to music for the first forty minutes. The rest of the time she'd enjoyed the silence. There had been times when she and Michael were so comfortable together- or just so worn-out and happy- they didn't need conversation. The silence between them now was different. Heavier, like a folded terrycloth towel compared to a silk pillowcase. Speaking of towels...

"I'm a morning showerer, so you'll have to do it at night." When he just looked at her, blank-faced behind his sunglasses, she elaborated. "We're sharing a bathroom. I don't want there to be any timing issues. I shower and do my hair in the morning, so if you shower the night before, you won't get impatient and shouty when you have to wait."

"Yeah, I remember," he said at last.

"And I think we should do something about the cooking too, because I'm not making dinners every night. I don't care what the women in this town do." She crossed her arms, defensively. It was that or come off as a Babbling Mess, and Defensive Bitch was always preferable in her book. "And- oh, look. Welcome to Mornington. We're here."

The town was isolated, just as Alexander and Medb had said, but picturesque. The shops they passed were small and independently-owned, and there were potted containers filled with ivy or blooming flowers on every corner.

"I feel like I'm in a laundry detergent commercial." Even Michael had to crack a smile at the utter bewilderment in her tone. Nothing could be further from Fiona than the self-conscious, tidy quaintness that surrounded them. "Oh god." She whirled around, then back. "People met on the street, and they just hugged. And look at that-" she pointed again. They were driving past a park filled with smiling, apple-cheeked kids playing on the swings and in the sandbox. "Holy fuck. This is like that Maycherry town from that show."

Michael started to ask what this had to do with the Mayflower, but just then they arrived at their destination. The house was modest but neat, like most everything else in the town. Someone had apparently been alerted to their arrival, because there was a well-tended pot of flowers sitting on their front steps.

"Let's get the important stuff inside before the welcome committee shows up," he said, and Fi was out of the car before he finished the sentence.

The place came furnished, nothing fancy, but not garage sale-quality either. They hauled the cases of supplies- guns, bugs, cameras, intel files- into the bedroom closet for the time being. Michael endured a three-minute tirade about having to share closets, and gave her silent points for brevity and the amount of swearing. As soon as they had brought the last of their suitcases in, someone knocked on their door.

"It's showtime, Valerie," Michael told her sweetly, as he moved to grab the doorknob. She stomped down on his instep.

"I'm ready when you are, darling."

She opened the door with what Maddie probably would have called a company smile in place. A trio of women stood on the doorstep. One of them was Zoe Krzewski.

"Hello!" one of the others, a dark, heavy-set woman exclaimed. "Welcome to Mornington!"

"Thank you," Michael replied, shaking their hands. "I'm Michael Newman. This is my wife, Valerie." She smiled and silently followed suit. They both shook Zoe's hand last. She was an attractive woman, that much they knew from the pictures they'd already seen, but what neither was expecting was what they heard when she spoke.

"We're always pleased to see new faces join us. My name is Zoe Krzewski. I'm the pastor at the church in town. I'd like to extend an open invitation for you to join us for our services- unless you have an affiliation you want to keep elsewhere, of course." Her voice was beautiful, smooth and rich, and she had an ease and confidence that hung around her like an expensive perfume.

"Oh, we moved here from California," Fiona replied airily. "So that would be quite a commute. It's so, so nice of you to welcome us. Just what we were expecting in a town like this, isn't it, baby?"

"Sure is."

"That's why we moved here. Well, he got a job in Miami, but he's telecommuting. We wanted something... smaller. Homey and warm." She slid her arm around his waist and he wrapped his around her shoulders. "So thank you so much for the invitation. We would love to attend."

The women beamed their smiles full of peace and harmony all over them. "Wonderful," the first one burbled. There was really no other word for it, Fiona thought, even as that popped into her head. She was a burbler. "Oh, that's wonderful!"

"Yes," Zoe replied, more sedately but still obviously pleased. "If there's ever anything we can do to help you, please don't hesitate to ask. We are neighbors, after all." She pointed to the blue house next-door. "And the Mornington town motto is Every Neighbor a Good Neighbor, Every Neighborhood a Family."

"Wow," Michael said, smiling again. "I don't think they put that in the brochure, did they, honey?"

"The only help I need at the moment," Fiona said, ignoring him, "is figuring out how I'm going to go from working sixty hours a week at a public relations firm to staying home all the time!" She leaned forward, lowering her voice to a conspirator's whisper. "We're trying to start a family. The doctor thought taking a break from everything would help, so..."

"I agree completely," Zoe told her, grabbing her free hand and sandwiching it between hers. "There is nothing more important than family. As women, we are the heads of our families. We have to use the power and the gifts God gave us to _lift _our husbands up." The women behind Zoe literally stared up at the sky, like they expected to see their husbands floating by in cloud cars. "We have to _uplift _their spirits, and surround them with the love and acceptance they need to do the right thing."

Michael and Fiona blinked. At the same time. He recovered first, mostly because she was wondering just what the hell went on in these women's meetings. "That's a very interesting message, Mrs. Krzewski. My family- my parents- always followed the idea that the man was the boss, but I have to say, since I've gotten married, I've learned to follow her lead on a lot of things."

"It's true that men do take a leadership role outside the home more frequently than women, but the home is the seat of true power. I'm sure when you are blessed with children, you'll see that even more clearly. Can we expect you at the group tomorrow, Valerie?"

"Sure," Fiona replied, turning to Michael as if for confirmation. "I would love to."

"Wonderful. Amy," she gestured to the small, mousy woman behind her, who had all but disappeared in the cloud of Zoe's charisma, "can come over and walk with you to the church. I would do it myself but, unfortunately, I have to get there early to deal with some problems."

"Oh, it's nothing serious, I hope?" Michael ventured, putting a concerned look on his face.

"There is no problem that can't be overcome with effort and ingenuity, Michael. One of my own mother's sayings. Is there anything else we can do for you before we go?"

"Well, we do need some food in the house," Fi laughed, "but I guess you can't make that magically appear!"

"The grocery is a block and a half down if you go back the way you came in. It was so lovely to meet you." The other women echoed the same, and Michael and Fi waved from the doorway, looking as perfect as the happy couples that came with picture frames. Zoe moved up the walk to her door, and just as she went to enter, turned back to them. "You should walk. It's a lovely day."

They locked up behind them, which probably immediately marked them as city-bred outsiders, but it was far too ingrained in them not to. Fi started marching along, surprised when Michael grabbed her hand in his. "Slow down, Valerie, we're supposed to be relaxing now, remember?"

These were the moments she was dreading, the times no one was around and they had to keep their act up. "Right, baby," she told him, checking her pace back to meet his. He swung her hand lightly, bumping against her leg, then his. "I wonder if they have a video store in town. We could finally catch up on movies, like we always said we would." She couldn't remember the last time she and Michael had sat and watched anything from start to finish that wasn't a surveillance tape or a tape of an interrogation.

"I don't know, V, it's a pretty small town."

She looked up at him in confusion, and he lowered his voice and bent his head next to hers, like he was going to kiss her. "I thought I could call you V. It fits you better anyway." She smiled and leaned forward two inches to press her lips to his. Light, sweet, innocent. And still so Michael.

He gripped her hand tighter for an instant as she pulled away, like he wanted to pull her back, but when she looked at his face, he was taking in the surroundings. Probably making a mental map with potential hot spots and exit routes clearly marked.

The grocery store was what they'd already come to expect from Mornington: small, neat, and inviting. Not only were there no automatic entry doors, there was even a bell on top of the one they did have. When they walked in, the cashier looked up. Seeing they were strangers, she straightened and smiled at them. "Hello. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks," Michael replied, taking one of the carts by the door.

"Look, they have movies here," Fi said, pointing to a sectioned-off area with racks of videos. "I'm going to go see what they have. Any requests?" she called over her shoulder.

"Nothing sappy," he replied, not wanting to imagine what it would be like to sit next to her and watch some perfect Hollywood couple make cinematic love on TV.

There was a young girl in a smock and jeans straightening a rack of movies. She turned when Fi entered, then straightened and smiled, just like the first one had. "I'll let you know if I need anything," Fi replied before the girl could open her mouth. "Actually..." she said, whirling around and scanning the shelves quickly. "Where is your foreign section?"

The girl wrinkled her forehead. "You're... really not from here, are you? Um," she twirled her curly auburn hair around one finger, "I think we have, like, some Jackie Chan movies in the action section. Over here." She walked over and picked one up. "So where did you move here from?"

"California. L.A."

"Wow." The girl gave her a look that was so obviously awestruck, Fi melted a bit.

"It was nice enough. Nothing like here. What's your name?"

"Dolores." Seeing Fi's reaction, she hurried to explain. "It's after my grandma. Like a tradition thing. My mom was named for her grandma, too, but _her _name was Tennessee! I figure at least mine is an actual name, y'know?"

"Oh. Right. I'm Valerie."

"Why did you move _here _from L.A.?" Dolores blurted out, saying L.A. like heaven and here like vomit.

"Long story. My husband and I thought a change of pace would do us good." She grabbed a box at random. "This any good?"

"First season of The X-Files? Um, that's classic. You've never seen it?"

Fiona looked down at the date on the back of the box. "I was living in Paris when this came out. It was all plays that year, and cafes and shopping."

"Wow. You're, like, so cool." Dolores blushed almost as dark as her hair, dunking her head down. "I can't believe I said that," she muttered.

Fi smiled and shook her head. "It's okay. You really are lucky, you know, to live in such a friendly town like this." She looked at Fi in clear disbelief, but Fi continued, selling it with all the 'Irish charm' she could muster. "Today, right after we arrived, these lovely women showed up to invite us to church, and a women's group. Do you know them? Well, you must, since this is such a small town, right?" She laughed.

Dolores shrugged and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "Yeah, that's Pastor Krzewski. That's the big thing here, the church."

"You don't go?"

"We're Catholic. We drive to the next town over and go there. We're, like, the only people in town who do it. It's embarrassing."

"Hey, ready to go?" Michael appeared behind her, pushing a cart full of paper bags.

"That was quick. Uh, yeah, I'll get this one," she held up the case to Dolores. "Can we check out here?"

"Oh, just take it. It's a dollar a day for the first three days, then a dollar-fifty every day after. I'll get the money from you when you bring it back." She was watching Michael shyly. He smiled at her and she started to blush again.

"Thanks," Fi said, taken aback at how different even movie rentals were in this town. "Michael, this is Dolores. This is my husband, Michael."

"Hi," she said in a near-whisper, moving back to the movies she was straightening.

"Nice to meet you." Michael charm-smiled her, which unbeknownst to him, robbed her of the power of coherent speech for the next hour.

They carried the bags home making the same small talk about how nice the town was. And it was, if you liked peaceful twilight scenes of houses lit up with families eating around the dinner table. _Give me a dirty alley and a gunfight any day_. Either of them could have thought it.

When they were safely inside again, Fi dumped her bags on the kitchen table. English muffins, grapefruits, yogurt, more yogurt (she rolled her eyes), skim milk, eggs, Earl Grey tea...

"They didn't have any loose," he told her when he came in. "Just teabags."

"You actually remembered all this."

He shrugged it off. "Yeah, and I remembered you shower at night."

She stuck the yogurt, eggs, and milk, in the refrigerator. "And I remember you leave rings on the tables and put your feet on the furniture."

"You talk in your sleep and sleep on the right side of the bed." He started filling a cabinet with bottles of sauces, dry noodles, and bread. Pasta was one of the few things either of them could reliably cook.

"You sleep in the middle of the bed and hog the covers," she replied, tossing him the tea. "And speaking of showers and beds, that's where I'm going."

"I thought you showered at night," he called after her.

"I've been packing and driving all day. I'm all grungy! I can't sleep like that." She knew it was retreat, but at least she got the last word. As she turned on the shower, running the water as hot as the old pipes could manage, she leaned over the sink and closed her eyes.

Damn it. It was moments when he said that shit, when he pulled out little bits of information about her that most men would have long since forgotten, that reminded her why he was who he was. It was things like this that snuck under her guard and sucker-punched her. She looked at herself in the mirror and began to brush her hair out. "You knew it would be like this. Think about Olga. Think about her baby. You're not a sap, Glenanne."

When she came out into the bedroom, Michael was kneeling on the floor of the closet, checking over the supplies. He had set up one of their surveillance cameras in another plant that he'd moved from their kitchen table to the dresser. It was aimed out their window and into what looked like the Krzewski bedroom. She could see a shadow move down their hallway through the open door. "Please tell me they have curtains in there," Fi muttered as she moved to the bed. "I know we need information, but there are limits to the kind of surveillance I want to do."

"Yeah, they've got curtains. We need to get a bug in there. Maybe you can get invited over for tea after your little meeting tomorrow."

"Why do I have to get invited over? You could go over and watch the game with Ike, or whatever the equivalent of male bonding is in this town. Actually," she reconsidered, "they'll probably invite us both over for dinner. It'll give us a chance to plant more bugs." She was moving the pillows to the center of the bed, pounding and shaping them into a kind of wall.

"What are you doing?"

She climbed into bed. Her head disappeared for a minute as she bent to remove something from her bag on the floor. She straightened up and smiled at him. "I don't want us to get confused about what we're here to do." She had a file, her bedtime reading, apparently, and a bottle of lotion. Michael's stomach sank. She laid back and pointed her toes at the ceiling, and began smoothing the lotion into her legs. And around and up...

"This is a professional job. No problem, right?"

"Right," he muttered, moving his eyes away from her legs to the ceiling. "Did you use all the hot water?"

"Probably."

"Perfect," and he went to the bathroom for a cold shower.


	9. A Series of Struggles

9. A Series of Struggles

He woke with her hand on his shoulder. It was early. The sky was the dark blue at the center of a flame. He moved his eyes to see her, just the curve of her face he could make out in the darkness. Her mouth was slightly open and relaxed, her hand lightly curled against his skin. He matched his breathing to hers, slow and quiet.

She murmured something in her sleep, then moved her hand away. It slid across his skin like a new hurt and he moved his head to follow it. She sighed and hugged one of the pillows closer to her chest. She was lying on that fort-wall like Cleopatra or someone. It made him smile. He watched her for a few more minutes, until he felt strange doing it. Like he was taking something away from her.

Then he got up and dressed in the dark. He hadn't run without being chased in a while. It was strange how relaxing it was without worrying about which fence he should jump or where the shots were coming from. He ran up one side of the street and down the other, further and further, watching the lights flicking on in the dark houses. He ran past the Church of the Lord's Tomorrow, a white wooden building surrounded by a sweeping lawn. It wouldn't have looked out of place on a Small Towns of America calendar. At one house, he saw a man in a work shirt stomping out to his truck, and his wife running after him from the doorway, to give him a thermos. He turned and kissed her. He looked down at the pavement under his feet. The lack of variation in pavement was a strange kind of comfort. Wherever you were, it looked pretty much the same. He wondered, without meaning to or wanting to, what a real husband would have done in his place. Would he have kissed Fi awake, moving slowly along one arm, up her neck to her face? Or waited there for her to start to wake up, and told her something nice, so the first thing she did, before she even opened her eyes, was smile?

He ran himself exhausted and showered when he got back. When he turned off the water, he heard her waking up, the creak of the bed and the clock being picked up and put down again. She woke up slow whenever she would. He wrapped a towel around his waist and went to the bedroom. She grunted and rolled off the pillows, pulling one over her head. He went to the kitchen and ate a banana and a yogurt. He had hidden a clean cell inside their unplugged toaster for calls to Sam. He tipped it over so it fell out.

"Michael?" she called groggily through the walls.

"Yeah?"

"Will you put on some water for me?"

He looked at the gas stove. He'd filled up the tea kettle when he'd come in from running, and now he reached over and turned the burner on. The flame caught and flared. "Yeah, okay."

She hopped into the kitchen a few minutes later, looking fresh and bright and clean-faced. Her Valerie clothes were disconcertingly normal: jeans (long, plain ones not adorned with slashes or burn marks), tennis shoes with blindingly white laces, and a navy t-shirt. "Can I wear jeans to a woman's group?" she asked abruptly, holding her arms out like a paper doll.

He was eating another yogurt and looked up with the spoon in his mouth. "I... have no idea. Maybe?"

"Hmm. My mother used to go to things like this. She wore dresses. Of course, she usually wore dresses, so that's not much help." She was standing at the stove, then sounding surprised, she turned back. "I wonder if this is how most women feel when they get ready in the morning, this insecurity. How horrible _that _must be." She wrinkled her nose and he smiled again. "What's so funny?"

He waited until she sat down out of arm's reach to reply. "I don't know who'll be happier to see you back in your regular clothes, you or me."

"Are these that offensive to your keen fashion sense, Michael?" She watched him over the rim of her cup. She still cradled it in both hands, like she had since he'd known her.

"I just meant I can't wait until this is over."

"Me too." She took a sip, then noticed the phone on the table. "Calling Sam?"

He picked it up again. "We need to find out if he got the IRS data on the church yet."

Sam answered on the third ring, half-asleep. "Whuh? Ah, Christ," he muttered as something fell. "Sorry, baby. No, no, it's business. Yeah, I'm going outside, go back to bed."

"Stop lying, Sam," Fi said into the phone. "We know there's no woman there."

"Isn't it- it _is _way too early in the morning for you to be busting my balls, Fi. Couldn't you guys find something _else _to occupy yourselves with this early? She's going to be in a bad mood for the rest of the day now. I knocked over her peacock lamp."

"Oh, your blow-up doll comes with cock-related accessories now?"

"Mike, if this is what you're putting up with, you need to ask what's-his-face for hazard pay. And Fi, if you-"

"Okay, it's sweet that you two missed each other, but we need that financial data if you've got it, Sam."

"Yeah, yeah. Let me- okay. So... up until the '60s, Mornington had a booming business in textiles, namely lace- that's lace, Fi, not mace. They were the biggest producers of doilies in the South."

"_Doilies_?" Michael said it like someone else would have said Nazis.

"Yep. Then in the sixties that crashed and the town fell on hard times. The church has really turned it around. Zoe has written a couple books, autobiography-self-help things, and she pushes them on the Christian circuit. Like Billy Graham or that rat-face guy in Texas."

"Rat guy?" Fi and Michael exchanged looks again.

"Guys, turn on the television once in a while, okay? Try to keep up. So she also pushes these Christian novelties. Lace-edged pillowcases and blankets that Zoe blesses or prays over or something. A big trade in hospitals and nursing homes, apparently. Promises they'll promote healing and peace."

"So she's a fucking faith-healer now?" Fiona pushed her tea away and tapped her fingers, a warning sign Michael recognized.

"Eh, kinda. Apparently she promises spiritual healing and peace, not the physical kind. But she does have a website full of testimonials from people who say their condition improved after buying one of these. And just FYI, I had to talk to one of Maddie's friends about this. It evolved into a half hour come-to-Jesus-literally- speech. I had to fake a hernia to get out of there before she started speaking in tongues."

"How much is Zoe making off this?"

He sighed, and there was a rustling of paper on the other end. "Two point six million last year. All her stuff is made in the U.S.A., nothing imported. Apparently she gets a bunch of tax breaks for hiring the homeless and training them to make this junk. Like that's a marketable skill." He snorted. "She took... sixty-five thou last year as salary from the church. Ike made less than that as a teacher. House got paid off with the first husband's insurance policy decades ago, cars are used. Barry couldn't find any hidden off-shore accounts in either of their names. And he says he wants to see pictures when the two of you get back."

Fi snorted. "Maybe we can organize our own slide show so you, Maddie, and Barry can have the full Mornington experience."

"Things are that much fun up there?"

"A barrel of monkeys. Psychotic, creepy monkeys."

They spent the morning setting up cameras around their house, some inside, under the guise of unpacking, and some outside while they were "doing yardwork." They had the Krzewskis' bedroom, living room, office, and garage covered. Of course, Zoe and Ike were both at work, so there was nothing to see but their yappy dog chasing his tail and napping. But Zoe had walked, so at least they managed to bug her car too.

When they went back inside, he read over the files for the hundredth time. Fi was sitting on the floor, her back against the bed, and preparing the bugs she was going to plant in the church that day. She was in a cheerful tech-trance playing with her toys: fingers working busily, feet tapping, a tuneless hum from deep in her throat.

When she finished, she glanced behind her and idly picked up one of the photos he'd left on the bed. "I wonder if we would know her baby when we saw it- him or her," she wondered aloud. She turned Olga's passport picture to face Michael. Her eyes were the same as Alexander's in color and intensity, but there were dark circles under them, and she was so thin it made her look older than she was.

"How many babies are we going to have to look at?"

"Toss me that," she said, pointing to her purse on the side of her bed. She pulled out a mini-notebook, flipped a few pages, and began to read. "There were three birth certificates issued in the right time frame by people we know are members of the church. Two boys, one girl. Now, one of the boy has older siblings. I think it's more likely the infant would have been adopted by an infertile couple, so the other boy and the girl seem more likely."

"But this family that has older kids, they could have been adopted, too."

"They're eighteen-month old twins. That woman is not going to illegally adopt a baby. Believe me, Michael," she continued when he started to object. "Also, her husband is a photographer. He had a family shot in the window of his portrait studio- his wife and all three of his kids have bright red hair. Including the baby. I noticed it the other day when we were coming back from the grocery store."

"Who are the other two?"

"Thomas and Nina Douglas are the parents of the boy, Mason, and Chris and Amy Van Dorn had the little girl, Hannah. Amy was the mousy one who came by with Zoe yesterday. Thomas and Nina have been married for eight years, and Chris and Amy for three." She closed the notebook and stuffed it back in her purse, then hid the bugs in a half-empty pack of gum and added that to her purse too. "Amy is walking me to the group thing and I should get to meet Nina there. Ready to go play baseball with the pastor's husband and some kids?" She raised her eyebrows and quirked her lips, like she was holding back a huge laugh.

"No, but we do need a read on Ike. It's too coincedental-"

"I know, that his arrival in town lined up with Zoe taking over the church.

"But I didn't get an invite to any ball practice yesterday."

"Don't worry, I have a plan to get you down there." She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the hallway. They saw Amy coming down the street at the same moment. She dropped her purse on the floor, then turned and pulled his head down to hers. She kissed him hard, and so quick he didn't have time to close his eyes. The plain cotton of her t-shirt was soft and skin-warm under his fingers. She was clutching his shoulders, practically climbing up his body. He was stunned into grabbing her ass, molding his hands to it and lifting her against him. She murmured in approval and tilted her head to kiss him more fully. He bit down on her lip and sucked it into his mouth.

And then the doorbell rang.

She broke away and touched her mouth. Her lips were smeared, red, wet, and looked like the epitome of everything dangerous and irresistible. She opened the door, giggling and leaning into him. She lifted her hair off her shoulder pointedly and he bent and kissed her neck, the bit of skin behind her ear. It smelled like Chanel, her Valerie perfume, and he pulled away.

"Amy! Oh, I'm sorry- I must have forgotten we had that group today."

Amy was busy blushing and looking away. "I'm sorry to interrupt... Did-did you still want to go?"

"What do you think, baby?" She turned around, glancing over her shoulder at Amy. "I hate to leave him here with nothing to do. He gets all bored and lonely," she leaned into him, pouring off energy and heat, "and starts working and he's supposed to be taking a vacation until we get settled in." For a second he imagined slamming the door in Amy's face.

"If- if you did want to come along, Michael, the church sponsors this baseball team, and they're practicing in the field behind the church right now. Mr. Ike, that's Pastor Zoe's husband, he usually coaches them with a couple of the older boys, but I'm sure he'd be glad to have some help."

He exchanged a look with a very satisfied Fiona, then smiled at Amy. "Okay. I'm game."

* * *

By the time they walked to the church, Michael had determined that Amy was high-strung, devoted to Zoe, but sincere. An hour later, he knew that Ike was putting on a Michael Landon act to cover up _something_ and the Mornington baseball team had no chance of winning a game against a group of cross-eyed senior citizens with arthritic knees.

After Amy introduced Ike and Michael and led Fiona off to the church, Ike turned to him and grinned. He was wearing a baseball cap over the comb-over, but his glasses and shabby clothes made him look exactly like what he claimed to be: an average high school teacher. A nobody. "Hi, Michael. I'm Ike. Or Coach Ike, the kids call me," he laughed jovially, patting a kid on the head as she ran onto the field. "Welcome to town, and to the Mornington Marauders practice. You've played baseball, right?"

"Not in a while, but I think I remember the general idea. That way's first, right?"

Ike laughed. "I tell you, our team has a whole lotta heart, but we could really use some extra coaching on the basics. This is Joey," he said, pointing to a blond teenager at the gate greeting the kids. "Gav!" Another teen, slight and Hispanic, jogged over from the dugout. "Gavin, this is Michael. He's going to start helping us out with the coaching."

"Cool," Gavin smiled, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "Nice to meet you."

"Okay, kids! Heads up." Ike clapped his hands a couple times. A dozen kids were goofing off on the field, and they jumped, bounced, and danced over to sit in front of Ike and Michael. "This is Mr. Michael. He's going to be helping us out, along with Tony and Gavin. What do we say?"

"Welcome to Mornington, Mr. Michael," the kids chorused loudly.

Ike continued, "We have a game coming up this week against the Tigers, and what are we gonna do?"

There was a long pause, then a scrawny kid in a Red Sox cap raised his hand. "Win?"

"That's exactly right! Come on, Marauders, what did Robbie just say?"

"Win," a few more voices chimed in.

Ike put his hands on his hips and looked over the ragtag group of kids. "Now, I know our last game against the Bruisers didn't go exactly the way we hoped, but you never get anywhere in life without trying and failing a few times. And what does Pastor Zoe say? If you try as hard as you can..."

"You'll always be a winner!"

"Yes! I believe in each and every one of you. I believe you have the heart and the _desire _to be champions." Two kids started a slap-fight and Gavin took them aside to break it up. "Okay, start counting off. Tony and I will take the hitters and Gavin and Michael will work with the infield."

It took five minutes for him to cement his theory that these kids were terrible. Two of them were wearing their gloves on the wrong hands and a different two were afraid of the ball and shrieked every time it fell within two feet of them. "Okay, that was... better," he told one after he got her to stick her glove out, with her eyes closed, as he threw the ball to her.

"Switch it up," Ike yelled. "Doing a great job, everyone!"

"Hey," Gavin caught up with him. "You did good with Marley. We had someone else from the church helping us a few months ago. The guy beaned her with the ball and gave her a concussion. It's why she's so scared of it now."

"Yeah, that happen to the rest of them, too?" he said quietly.

Gavin grinned. "This is how Ike wanted it. There are a few kids in town who are real superstars, but they play on the school team. These kids- they never get a chance. He started the church team to encourage them, you know? And make them see how fun sports can be."

"Ah," he glanced over at Ike, taking his position at shortstop. "Ike sounds like a great guy."

"He is." Gavin paused, digging in the dirt with his shoe. "My mom came here to work with the church. Ike and Zoe totally turned her life around. They're the best."

"Can I go first?" Marley interrupted, tugging on Gavin's sleeve.

"I want to go last," the scrawny kid piped up.

"Yes," Gavin told her. "And why do you want to go last?"

"Baseball is hard. I don't like it." He was one of the glove-on-the-wrong-hand kids.

Michael bent down and regarded him seriously. "A lot of things are hard. It doesn't mean we don't have to do them. What are you going to do when life gets hard?"

Scrawny pulled off his ball cap, revealing a mop of sweaty sand-colored curls. "My dad says life is a series of struggles and then you die."

"Your dad a lawyer?"

"No," he wiped his hand under his dripping nose. "He's a dentist."

"Yeah, I guess that works too," Michael said after a pause.

"Shut the fuck up, fag!"

Everyone whirled around. "That is a _bad _word," Scrawny informed him.

A woman and man his mom would have described as "sketchy" were fighting in the parking lot. Michael watched as she took a wild swing at him. He ran to intercept them as Sketchy Man got the woman in a headlock. He was carrying her to his beat-up Chevy while she twisted and kicked. She connected a couple times, but Sketchy's nose was broken and running with blood, so he wasn't letting go.

"Get the fuck away from us, man!"

Michael grabbed her feet and pushed her against Sketchy. He wasn't expecting that; his legs went out from under him and he fell back into the car. The woman was clinging to Michael desperately and as he walk-carried her a safe distance away, he saw a flash out of the corner of his eye. Fiona was running towards them. Sketchy got up and lurched toward her, shoving her roughly. He saw Fi debate for a moment, but breaking the guy's ribs would break their cover, so with a dramatic cry, she collapsed. Somewhere in the vicinity of the church, a woman screamed.

Michael slugged Sketchy in the face. "What the hell is the matter with you? That's my wife!"

"Yeah, that's my girlfriend, and she's leaving with me!" Sketchy panted. He connected with Michael's stomach, managing to get in a lucky hit at one of his previously-broken ribs. Michael grunted and Sketchy punched him again, in the face this time. Then Ike, Tony, and Gavin were on them, pulling them apart and throwing Sketchy against his car again.

"V, V, are you okay?" He knelt next to her and helped her sit up. She nodded, and got up on her knees next to him.

"I'm fine, baby. Are you okay?" She touched his cheek gingerly, running her fingers over his jaw. "Baby, he punched you in the face! Oh my god!"

"Michael, Valerie! Are you both all right? Should we call an ambulance?" Zoe was hovering over them worriedly, flanked by Zoe and another woman he didn't know. "Come sit over here." She linked her arm in Fiona's and led them to a picnic table in the grassy area between the parking lot and the ball field.

"Oh, you were so, so brave, to help poor Melissa like that," Amy said. The crowd surrounding them murmured their agreement. "Both of you- oh my gosh, I could never do that!"

Michael smiled sheepishly. "I think I got a little ahead of myself. I'm just glad you're all right, honey. I almost had a heart attack when you ran out like that."

"I don't understand," Fiona said, turning to Zoe. "Why were they doing this? Who was that man?"

Zoe and Ike exchanged looks. "Well, unfortunately, sometimes women who need our help, like Melissa, know other people who aren't living a fulfilled life. And when people like Melissa make different choices, their friends don't react well, and they try to bring them back down, away from our path. What we need to do is pray for this man, and work even harder to help people like Melissa become messengers of the truth, for people like him."

Oh, she was _good_. She could even spin a Jerry Springer-style fight into a religious sermon.

Fiona looked up at him, all big, wet eyes and trembling hands. "Michael, you are okay, aren't you?" she said anxiously, touching his face again.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he insisted. He glanced up at the onlookers and then back at Fiona.

Luckily, Zoe took the hint. "Let's give them some privacy, everyone. Nina, will you see if Melissa needs anything? Oh," she said, as sirens started up, "and here are the police."

The crowd drifted away. One red-headed woman caught Michael's eye and looked pointedly at Fiona. "You are a very lucky man."

He smiled and turned to her. "What did you tell them?"

"More importantly, what did they tell me," she whispered back. She waited a beat, then gave in. "I'm the face of God to you," she said in a sing-song voice.

Shocked and vaguely nauseous were the only ways to describe his look and she couldn't stop herself from giggling. Michael closed his eyes and faked a believable wince as he leaned against the table. "That's what you were talking about in there?" he hissed. "You get told you're the face of God, and I get to coach a shitty baseball team and break up a fight in the parking lot."

She wrapped her hand around his neck and leaned toward him until her forehead was resting on his. "They're still watching," she whispered, barely moving her lips. "I forgot my cover."

It was meant as an apology, so he nodded.

"Who knew it'd be harder for you to lose a fight than win one?" she continued.

"Hey," he muttered.

She smirked and sat up, took a tissue out of her pocket, and went to dab at the blood slowly oozing from his lip. But instead, she turned her head and placed her cheek against his. He went still, evened his breathing. She was practically in his lap, and if he bent forward the slightest amount he could kiss her neck. Instead he moved his shoulders against the table, like he was trying to get comfortable. Her nose was pressing against his hair.

"Are you... smelling me?"

"I'm being _wifely_," she whispered back, and he felt her hot breath on his cheek.

"I smell like sweat and dirt," he murmured, and because they could still be watching and she was his wife- supposed to be his wife- he ran his hand along her shoulder to the nape of her neck. Her hair was falling down a little, and it was sweaty and soft wrapped around his fingers. When they were together, and she forgot to pull her hair back at night, he'd wake up with it tangled over his face, in his mouth, his eyelashes. Like even when he slept, he was hungry for any part of her. She suppressed most of a shudder, only letting it out in a trembling exhale against his mouth as she sat up.

"You smell like yourself." Her pupils hadn't been that dilated a moment ago, had they? He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. Then Fi smiled like someone saying goodbye at an airport. "It's hormonal, smells. All hormones." She stood. "Where should we go for dinner tonight? Some place that sells something besides sandwiches."

**Author's Note: **Well, I hope it was worth the wait! I'm sorry for the delay in posting; I hope to have the chapter up sometime before next Friday, and you'll see just what happened to Fi in the woman's group then. Please keep reviewing and let me know what you thought!


	10. Fear

**Author's Note: **I know I'm behind on my review replies, but please know that I do read them and take them to heart. They spur me on so much, I can't even tell you guys! Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time.

10. Fear

"How are you all doin'?"

If Fiona had a proper gun, instead of the clichéd lady's .38 revolver in her purse, she would have cocked it in that little old lady's face. Not to kill her, of course, but it would be worth it to see her expression and make them all shut the _flying fuck_ up.

"How wonderful to meet you," she said. _She _was Millie, a sweet old lady in pink Reeboks, and the seventh person to stop them on their walk to the church for this women's group. "Now if you ever need anything, I live a couple blocks over and I'm older than dirt, so I know everything about everyone, and I'm rich enough that I'm not afraid to say it, too. So just you come and find me."

Fi smiled at the old lady despite herself, and reconsidered. Yes, the unremitting cheerfulness she was surrounded with in Mornington was annoying and frankly unnatural, but she had to acknowledge, at least to herself, that most of her frustration was standing next to her in dark sunglasses and blue jeans. Michael.

He was better at playing a devoted husband than she had ever imagined. She watched him flash the old lady one of his grins, the one that made Fi want to bite him, and then looked down at their joined hands. He was swinging hers like he had the first day when they'd walked to the grocery store. Occasionally their hands would brush against his leg or hers as they walked, and every time she felt his jeans-covered thighs against her fingers, it made her fingers itch. Almost like they wanted to bite into him too.

Of course it was all his fault for kissing her like that, for holding her against him when he knew that got her hot. Bastard. "And if you ever need any help around the house, let us know and Michael will be happy to help," she told Millie, ignoring the tightened grip of his hand.

When they set out walking again, she had a lighter, slightly appeased heart. Unfortunately, the rest of her body was still horny. Just keep the pillows between you, and remember this is why women have hands, she told herself, and tried not to think about his.

She decided to distract herself by talking to Amy. It turned out that once Fi asked her opinion on what rooms in their house would be best for a nursery, it was hard to turn her off. Michael was hanging back, taking in the facts Amy dropped and turning them over in his mind. Apparently Chris, Amy's husband, had been her high school sweetheart. He was a trucker and he wasn't home a lot, but their baby "made all the difference in the world. We feel like a real family now. I don't know. It's hard to explain, I guess, but- Hannah is just the sweetest, most wonderful baby." Amy fluttered her hands around her eyes as she teared up. "I feel like I've known her forever, like she was always meant to be my little girl." She laughed a little. "Zoe says all mothers feel that way! I'm sure you will too, Valerie, when it happens for you." She turned to Fi excitedly as they walked across the sweeping green lawn up to the church, "Oh, it just occurred! When our kids are older, they can be playmates! Hannie was born the same week as two other little ones- their moms will be in the group today too- and we get together as much as we can."

"That sounds like a busy week."

Amy laughed again. "You have no idea. Poor Zoe, we ran her ragged. She's such a help to us. And Ike too. Wait 'til you meet him, Michael."

* * *

After they left Michael at Ike's baseball practice, Fiona and Amy continued inside. She enjoyed another few moments of silent glee over the thought of Michael surrounded by kids. It's good he doesn't actually want any, or this would turn him off the idea permanently, she mused as she chatted with Amy about how sweet and old-fashioned the church looked. The interior was what she expected- old wooden pews, a slightly raised pulpit, stained glass windows heavy on the sun motif. Not a surprise considering the name of the town. She wandered away from Amy on the pretext of examining one such window. Then, smoothly, she took the chewing gum out of her mouth, inserted the bug, dropped her cell phone, and stuck the bug-gum concoction under the first pew.

There were a few other women trailing in, and she followed them to a small meeting room on the side of the building. The carpet and walls were identical shades of blue, and there was a semi-circle of wooden chairs painted a crisp shade of white. It was like walking into the sky and sitting on a cloud. Fi closed her eyes for a second, hit by a wave of vertigo. Then she heard the lite-jazz instrumental music getting piped in through speakers on the walls, and opened them.

There was a table set up in the back of the room with food, and that, naturally, was where everyone was gathering. They were watching her curiously, Amy excepted, and when Zoe swept in, she immediately grabbed Fiona's arm and took her around to make the introductions. Nina, the other potential adopter of Olga's baby, was a voluptuous bottle-blond with a warm handshake.

After the final "hello, how are you," Zoe turned to the table. "Carol, you really outdid yourself with the refreshments this week! Look at this spread," she enthused.

"I have chicken salad, turkey salad, ham salad, tuna salad, egg salad, crab salad, and seafood salad," Carol explained to a chorus of wows and aahs.

"I didn't even know you could make salads out of all those things," Fi said, praying she sounded enthusiastic.

"Yes, you can make salad out of any kind of meat. I had bacon salad, but my husband vacuumed those up last night!"

"You have got to give me the recipe for that, Carol," one of the women laughed. "My husband loves bacon, I could make it for his birthday."

"Valerie, did you want one of these?" Amy asked, holding up a plate.

Carol looked at Fiona's empty plate and wrung her hands in distress. "Do you not like it? You're not allergic to mayonnaise, are you?" she gasped in alarm. "Or, like, _bread_?"

Fi grinned her version of a Westen grin, grabbed the first sandwich she saw, and took a bite. "Mmm! Of course not," she said, covering her mouth demurely with one hand. "I just couldn't decide which one I wanted, but this is perfect! Thank you."

"Everyone?" Zoe was standing at the center of the chair circle. "Should we get started?" They sat down in the folding chairs, placing the paper plates and plastic cups on the little tables, also white, set between them.

Zoe was sitting, her head bent in silent contemplation. Everyone sat silently for a long moment, studying the walls or the floor. Zoe didn't move. The music seemed louder in the sudden quiet. Hell, Fiona thought, maybe she was sleeping- this music sounds like what they play at 3am on the Weather Channel. Like she heard her, Zoe lifted her head and beamed at them. "It's a new morning," she said in that reassuring, warm blanket voice. "Thank you, God."

"Thank you, God," the women echoed.

"The passage we're meditating on this week is from the Book of John." Zoe closed her eyes and recited it from memory: "_There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and the one who fears is not made perfect in love._ Now, Valerie, what we normally do is go around the circle and talk about how our lives relate to this verse. What we're afraid of, and how it's healed by familial love or love of self. Who wants to start?" Nina's hand shot up. "Nina," Zoe gestured.

"I was just talking about this with Amy yesterday. I was really afraid of being a mom. Which all of you know cause I talked about it constantly when I was pregnant. But after he got here- and I truly adore Mason now- but in the beginning, everything changed _so much_, and I don't know if I understood that, or if anyone can understand it before it happens to them. Sometimes I felt like I was just holding on to get to his next nap, because that was the only time I felt safe, like I wasn't going to screw him up and he wasn't going to drive me crazy. And what got me through, well, what _gets _me through," she corrected, laughing, "is you guys and your support, and Thomas. We are in the best place we've ever been, I can honestly say that, and I know no matter what happens, as long as I focus on our reflection of love, we'll be okay."

"That's wonderful, Nina. I know we are so happy to hear that you and Thomas have adjusted to being a family of three. I relate so much to your fears," Zoe continued, "because after my husband's death, I used to feel the same way every day. I got our boys up and dressed and to school, and then I worked and came home and fed them and put them to bed, and all I could think about was laying in bed and sobbing. That was all I wanted to do and I used to white-knuckle through everything else to get there. And what helped me was the support of a group like this one," she looked around, smiling, "and time, of course. Time to prepare my heart to love again. Who would like to go next?"

"What is a reflection of love?" Fi leaned over and asked Amy in a whisper.

Amy glanced at Zoe, then replied, "It's a concept Zoe came up with about relationships. It-"

"Amy, it's your turn." The circle had worked it's way around to her, and Amy blushed and straightened in her seat.

"I'm sorry. I was explaining reflections to Valerie."

"How rude of us, Valerie, I apologize. It's a phrase I use to explain my views on marriage." Zoe held her hands out in a triangle. "In this scenario, God's love is the sun, endless and unchanging. It shines down on you and your husband equally, but you each use it in different ways. Now, a crystal turns sunlight into a rainbow, and if we want to, we can take God's love and reflect it out to create this beautiful atmosphere for our husbands and families. We should always strive to be the face of God for them, not in the omnipotent, all-powerful sense, but in the complete and total giving of _all _of ourselves and our love. A _perfect _love, to relate it to this week's passage."

Fi fought the urge to roll her eyes, swallowed the wave of bile in her throat, and said, "That was beautiful, Zoe. Thank you." Everyone beamed, especially Amy. Fi paid close attention to her testimonial, then half-listened to the rest while trying to figure out exactly what kind of sandwich she was eating. She was almost positive it was chicken salad or turkey salad. Or ham. She supposed she should count her lucky stars it wasn't "seafood salad," whatever the hell that meant. Carol the salad maven caught her attention when she talked about her husband pressuring her for sex. Apparently Carol had time for spinning, jogging, and water aerobics, which she no doubt needed to work off all this mayonnaise, but not time for sex.

"What do you need spinning and water aerobics for?"

Everyone turned to stare at Fi. "Please tell me you're not one of those women who weighs 90 pounds and never exercises," Nina moaned, throwing her hands up. "I was just starting to like you."

"No," Fi laughed, "far from it. I just think, if he wants sex and you want a work-out, why not have sex? It's good cardio, burns calories, and you get the same endorphin rush. And it makes him happy, so no more complaints."

Amy was blushing again, probably remembering what Michael and Fi had been doing when she knocked on their door. "Michael must count his lucky stars every day that he married you!"

"He's not the only one," she smirked as she examined her nails. "Before I married him, I weighed a whole lot more than 90 pounds!" Everyone laughed.

* * *

After the embarrassing parking lot escapade and another almost-too-close interlude with Michael at a picnic table, Fi made him take her to Waffle House. They did not have sandwiches. At home, they set up the equipment in their bedroom to transcribe the recordings from the bug in the church. Fi recapped the meeting for him while they did it, leaving out Zoe's whole reflection explanation, because hearing it once that day was enough. Part of her hoped she could have another early night and escape into sleep. Suddenly she knew how Nina and Zoe felt when they were white-knuckling it with their kids.

"The woman who locked Olga up is Zoe. It has to be. No one fucking sneezes in this town without saying hallelujah to Zoe for it."

"I agree. But where's the kid?"

"I think it-_she's _with Amy. The way Amy is with Zoe, like a student with her favorite teacher," Fi shook her head, "she buys into her act completely. If Zoe told her Olga wanted to give up her baby, or she needed to give up her baby, Amy would go along with it without a first thought."

"What about Nina? She's not a Zoe supporter?"

"Nina's a real person. She doesn't have the same hang-ups or need everything to look perfect like Amy does. When Amy talked about Hannah, how she was always meant to be hers, there was a look in her eye like the one she gets when she looks at Zoe. Like this is the answer if she can just believe in it enough."

Michael nodded, slowly. "Okay. We focus on Amy then. Alexander contacted me," he said, looking at the screen of his laptop. "They want updates. If you can get invited to Amy's tomorrow, we can bug them, too. Maybe Sam can help us get something on their phones. And we have to get a look at that kid. If it's obviously not Olga's, we'll have to re-evaluate."

"If we could get DNA from her, we could test it," Fi said, jotting down notes. "But what about the father? Are you thinking Ike?" Michael nodded, but Fiona pressed on. "She is very into this uplifting your husband shit, but I think she cares too much about her image and her power to let her husband impregnate homeless drug addicts, even if it did raise him to the heavens."

"It's him. He's too good to be true, plays the part too well, too smoothly. And now that I've gotten a look at him in person, I think he's younger than his stats claim, and in better shape than a high school teacher should be. He tries to hide it, but I can tell from the way he handled a bat that he has some weapons training."

"Interesting. We need to find out more about his background. There has to be something there- unless he's a burned spy, of course." She started to laugh, then groaned and pressed her hand to her side.

Michael was sitting in an armchair across the room. He didn't look up from his screen, but somehow he noticed. "Problem, Fi?"

She stood, pulling up her tank top and yanking down her sleep pants. There was a large circular bruise over her hipbone, already shades of navy and black. "What happened?" he said flatly, very close to her. She almost jerked when she looked up and saw him right in front of her. He sank to his knees as she pushed at the bruise. He winced in sympathy.

"From where I fell when that little shit pushed me. It's disgraceful," she began to rant, sounding more pissed than pained, "a Glenanne being taken by a junkie. I could have killed him if everyone hadn't been watching."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" He placed his hand under the bruise, cupping her hip and fitting his thumb into the crease at the top of her thigh. She inhaled sharply, then covered it with an aggravated sigh.

"It's only a bruise. I didn't chip the bone or tear the muscle, my abdomen's not distended or rigid, no nausea or vomiting, no fever."

He pressed evenly on the mark with the flat of his hand before moving to the area around it. "Does this hurt?"

"Not much. It's just a bruise," she repeated, exasperated. She leaned over him to grab a tube of Vitamin K cream off her nightstand. "I was going to put something on it."

He looked at her doubtfully. Then he flipped the tube out of her hand, squeezed some onto his fingers, and began to apply it himself. He let his fingers rest against her skin for a long moment, the liquid soaking into the deepest part of the injury through their combined body heat. She was was looking at the window, watching the Krzewski's ceiling fan twirl in their empty bedroom. It had to be harder to get turned on when you were staring at the ugliest flowered comforter in the Northern hemisphere.

Then he started to move his hand, circling his fingers wider and wider to smooth in the excess cream. He caressed her stomach, around to the place her hip curved into her ass, and she felt herself go wet and needy. She remembered touching him and smelling him on the picnic table; it was the first wifely thing that had come to her mind in that moment. And then his smell had made her recall every time they had fucked against the wall or in a car after a gun fight or a near-miss with the police, how he panted in her ear while she licked his neck and chest, loving the dark, rough taste adrenaline left on his skin. She curled her toes on the rug. She knew flowered comforters, even hideous ones, were no defense against this. And she knew something else: that if they were right, her love was perfect, because she was afraid.

She wasn't afraid of calling Michael her husband, hanging his clothes beside hers, waking up next to him, even the idea of cooking him dinner. It was the thought of doing those things, knowing they wouldn't mean the same thing to him that they did to her. It was the thought that she couldn't trust herself; she was someone who had to be able to trust herself, but when it came to Michael, she couldn't. She got hurt because she was stupid for him and with him.

She let her guard down with Michael McBride. She couldn't make the same mistake with Michael Newman, because at the end, she'd be left with Michael Westen again. Michael Westen, and he would be perfectly content to pretend this meant nothing and go back to whatever they had been before.

He took his hands away and she glanced down to watch him fumble the top to the vitamin K cream on. "It's just a bruise," he said, but his voice was so hoarse he had to cough to clear his throat.

"Yeah, I know."

**Author's Note:** Slightly shorter than the last couple chapters, but hopefully still worthy?


	11. Secrets and Dreams

11. Secrets and Dreams

Michael leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. Even in the red-black darkness behind his eyelids, he could smell Fiona. Her scent was wrapped around his head- and another part of his anatomy too. He breathed deep, like she was something he could exhale. He turned on the shower and crossed his arms over his chest. He could feel Fi's skin under his hands, see the fall of her hair against her face as she looked down at him. Abruptly, he turned off the water and opened the door. He looked at her legs against their white sheets: smooth, tan, toned calves, scarred knees. The sight hit him like a kick to the solar plexus.

She raised her eyes from the laptop on her stomach to his face. "Zoe is in bed, reading what the internet informs me is an Amish romance novel. No sign of Ike."

"I'm going running."

"Again?" She looked up and watched him stretch his hamstrings on the frame of the bed.

"I'll do surveillance on the church, see what the security is like at night."

She moved the laptop away and sat up. "Do you want me to come with you? We could take a look around."

"No. No, I'm going to scout it first." He laced up his beat-up running shoes and nodded. He paused in the doorway and without looking back at her, said, "Be back."

Outside, he started slow, breathing in unison with the pounding of his feet on the pavement. Sweat ran down the center of his back, his thin t-shirt sticking to his skin almost immediately. The night air was thick with a wet heat and the scent of flowers. Both wrapped softly around him. It made him think, like everything seemed to now, of Fi. He started running, pushing forward with every step.

Her voice in his ear, rasping against his neck. The words he knew she wouldn't remember saying. _"Your hands," she curved into him, "put your hands all over me."_

He ran through intersections without pausing, leaping over curbs. Faster. _"I'm so ready, Michael," gasping, pushing, "hurry."_

The sweat ran into his eyes and over his lips. Faster. _"Mmm, you taste good enough to eat," her tongue along his skin._

He felt his muscles start to burn and ignored them. Harder. _"Oh" her breath hitched._ _"Harder."_

He cut across the baseball field behind the church, dark and unlit. He tripped over an abandoned ball near third and slid down hard kn the dirt. An errant rock chewed up his leg. The blood was oozing down his leg when he stood up. There was a good set of security lights around the church itself, so he simply walked up the stairs and right through the unlocked front door.

There was a dim set of lights illuminating the pulpit and a brighter one shining down the hallway. Probably a door open somewhere.

He sat down heavily on the front pew, bringing his knee up as if to examine it. He heard footsteps down the hall almost immediately. "Hey," came a familiar voice, and he looked up in surprise.

"Gavin, right? From the ball game?"

"Yeah," the teenager nodded, moving out of the hall towards him. "What's up, Michael? Are you okay?"

"I was running, fell and hit my knee. Nothing. It's okay that I came in here, right?"

"Totally, that's why they always leave the doors unlocked. My mom was here," he blurted out, shoving his hands in his back pockets. "I was waiting for her."

"Yeah, you told me she worked for the church. They must be slave drivers to keep you guys here so late."

He smiled a little, moving closer. "We don't mind. She had to go help Ike with something. I guess they got caught up, cause they haven't made it back yet. Sometimes she forgets I have school," he said, trying to smile like he was kidding, but moving his feet restlessly.

"Hey, I can run you home. Literally."

His face brightened in relief. "Thanks. Let me finish up back here first."

Michael got up and followed him, trying to make easy conversation by asking about school. He hadn't had such a long conversation with a teenager since he was a teenager himself. Maybe not even then. Something about Gavin seemed familiar in some way. He filed that feeling away in the back of his head. The office in the back where Gavin had been working was large and piled with books, folded blankets, and packing materials.

"So the church does mail orders, I guess?"

Gavin nodded, moving a stack of addressed and labeled packages onto a desk and jotting a note on a Post-It. "Yeah, books and, like, blankets and stuff. We're going to start videos of Zoe's sermons soon. My mom does the shipping. This church in Arkansas is doing a ministry series based on Zoe's book. She was supposed to finish it up tonight so we can mail the order out tomorrow. But I did it for her, since she had to go with Ike." Michael glanced around, but there was nothing suspicious here. No trace of anyone but Zoe: her face beaming out a gentle smile from her book covers, her handwriting on the personalized notes attached to each blanket.

_Dear Norma,_

_This blanket comes to you with all of my prayers and good wishes. May it heal your soul as it warms your body. I appreciate more than I can say your kind words about my work. I know your love for the Lord will be your most valuable source of strength in the darkness of your recent diagnosis._

_Your Friend,_

_Pastor Zoe Krzewski  
_  
He wondered again how Fiona got through a meeting with this woman without bashing her head in.

"Ready?" Gavin asked as he hit the lights. "I, ah, saw you outside the Waffle House tonight," he continued as they headed out. "That lady with you, she's your wife?"

"Yeah, V. Valerie."

"Is she-" He broke off, and when Michael looked at him, he was surprised and amused to see he was blushing. "Is she a model or something?"

Michael laughed heartily. "No, but if I can tell her that someone asked that, I would get myself a year's worth of brownie points." He started jogging, surprised how easily the kid matched his pace.

He was small, wiry, but quick. Michael sped up, and Gavin did too, breathing harder and fisting his hands. That was when he realized who this kid reminded him of. He was just like Nate at that age. Friendly, talkative, smart- until you realized how he was eager to be liked. There was a hesitancy and vulnerability underneath, and a growing attempt at bravado to try and hide those qualities. Nate's came from their dad's constant nagging and bullying. Gavin's seemed to come from being an outsider. He kept talking about his admiration for Zoe and Ike, with an emphasis on how inclusive and welcoming their church was. He said something about his old school, and Michael decided to press him.

"Where'd you and your mom live before you came here?"

"She was staying in Miami. I lived in Jacksonville." He paused for a long moment, looking down at his feet. "I was- it was, like, a foster home."

Michael looked over at him again. Gavin was watching his feet. "So the church really helped your mom get straightened out."

"Yeah," Gavin said, giving him a hesitant smile. "They gave her a job and a place to stay and everything, so she could get custody of me."

"That's great."

"Yeah. That's why they're the best. It's the next right," he said, pointing to the corner. Gavin had directed them to the outskirts of town, an area Michael hadn't visited yet. The houses were set further apart, more pick-up trucks in the driveways. Heavy woods pushed at the edges of the road, clipping into the circles of light under the streetlamps.

"My mom and me are living at the shelter, but I have my own room. It used to be a storage center, but the church bought it and converted it." They turned off the main road, approaching a squat, concrete facility. There were no other buildings in sight; it was the perfect place to stash people you didn't want anyone to see. No matter how inclusive people liked to think they were, they didn't want drug addicts walking down their pretty streets or playing in their neat little park. "Kinda out of the way, but it was the cheapest building they could afford. And they have this van," Gavin continued.

It was a beat-up old one parked in front of the doors, and Gavin stopped next to it, leaning his arms on the hood. He was breathing hard and Michael had to conceal his smile.

"Hope I didn't push you too hard," he said. There were several lights on, and shadows moving in some of the rooms.

"No," he panted, "I'm fine. You sure you'll be able to find your way back, Michael?" he asked, looking up. "We're pretty far out."

"I don't mind waiting, to see if you get in okay. Is your mom waiting for you?"

He glanced behind him, at the lights and the shadows. "Yeah. Yeah, she's waiting. I'm just going to turn in. Thanks for coming with me."

"Sure. Night, Gavin." He waited until the kid unlocked the door and went inside. Then he circled around the back of the building. There were a few uncurtained windows, mostly dark. One had a light on, and he peered around the edge, looking in at a spartan, utilitarian room with a bed, a desk, and a chair. There was a woman slumped on the bed, looking stoned out of her mind. She was holding a cigarette that was about an inch away from incinerating her hand. Concrete walls, concrete floor. A sink and a toilet installed in one corner. No closet. No place to hide.

That was what he was thinking when Ike opened the door and stuck his head in. He shook his head when he saw her, then walked over and took the cigarette. He took out a huge silver keyring, unlocked the window, and threw it outside. He waved his hand to circulate the air. Michael stayed completely still, not moving an inch down the building. "Chloe, Chloe," he heard Ike sigh as he closed the window. "What am I going to do with you?"

He closed the shades, leaving just a lucky-enough gap for him to see through. Michael watched as Ike walked back to her, brushed her hair back from her face tenderly. He laid her down on the bed and folded the sheet over her. His lips moved again, saying something, and then he placed a hand on the curve of her stomach.

The woman was pregnant.

* * *

He grabbed two bottles of water out of the refrigerator. Moving down the hall, he was surprised to hear booming percussion coming from the bedroom. "I have found something creepier than an Amish romance novel," she informed him.

"I found where he kept Olga, and he's gotten another woman pregnant."

"Okay, you win." She stood up on the bed. "Damn you, Michael, I knew I should have gone. Why did I listen to you?"

He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to heave a pillow at his head or knuckle-punch his throat. Instead she sat next to him, gracefully curling her legs beneath her. He relaxed enough to explain what he found.

"You didn't see anyone but Ike and this Chloe woman?"

"No, but the locks were pretty basic and I marked the empty rooms. We can go back in tomorrow and look around."

"God knows how many sex slaves this guy has in there," she muttered. "It's his own little breeding ground and fuck parlor all in one." Then she slammed a pillow into his face, knocking him back on the bed. "If I'd come, we'd have broken him down, gotten him to admit what he was doing-"

"And we wouldn't have any direct proof that Amy's daughter is really Olga's, which is what Alexander and Medb _wanted_!" He scowled back at her.

She stood up and walked over to her dresser to check the laptop. She started hitting the keys angrily, enlarging first one view, then another.

"What? Fi, what's going on?"

"If you care, Ike is back from his nightly sojourn of drugging addicts and raping them. He's talking to Zoe in their bedroom, petting their fucking cat. Wait, now he's turning on the TV. The History Channel. How lucky that we didn't kick his bastard balls in so we can get this amazing surveillance now!"

"If I thought it would help," he said distinctly, "I would go over there with you and hurt him. I hate what he's doing, Fi. I do," he repeated when she finally looked over at him. "But that's not enough proof that they faked the adoption. We have to find out how Amy is involved and prove that her baby is Olga's baby."

Fi sighed, tapped more keys. "They're going to sleep. Guess he's too tuckered out for more sex." She sat back down, staring blankly at the television.

"What _is _this?" he asked, finally looking at the screen.

"Some mystery show. I thought it was strangely appropriate for the town. These seemingly innocent twin girls turn out to be evil clones who kill their fathers." She went to the closet and took out her gun, then started to clean it angrily. Michael waited. The speed of her hands was like watching the combustion of chemicals or the counting down of a timer on a bomb. Eventually, she would explode. And then-

"He's just a dime a dozen user and manipulator. How can these people not fucking see it!" Fi set the gun down gently and threw the rag she was using on top of it. "We always see it, don't we? Why can't they?"

"We're just lucky?" he ventured. When she didn't reply, he continued, "We're going to stop him from hurting these woman, Fi. Soon."

"Yeah. I know. I'm just- sick of people like that." Michael watched the efficiency of her movements, how much care and pride she took in her weapons. Like other women cared for flowers or their fancy jewelry, Fi had her guns.

He wanted to get her talking, and he cast around for a topic that might brighten her mood. "Are Medb and Alexander prepared to raise this baby when we find it?"

"I suppose so," she said, sounding surprised that he asked. "She said they had children at school in London, so it seems they have some experience in that area. I don't know much more than you do."

"So you didn't stay in touch with her after you left Dublin?"

"We weren't that close, later." She glanced at the television again. "They're kind of like you and me," she remarked, looking at the tall dark-haired man and the petite redhead, both in dark suits. "If I were stupid enough to work for your government. And if I had terrible taste in clothes. We shared a desk when we were children," she added, going back to Medb. "I was right-handed and she was left, so it worked out well. When it got cold in the winter, we would each wear one glove and keep the other hand in our laps. But once we were teenagers- well, Medb's family wanted her to be very _correct_. To make more of herself than I was going to be," she laughed. "So our teachers loved her. She always got picked to pass out papers and supervise the class when the teacher went to the bathroom."

"And you were blowing up loos." She smirked and nodded. "And kicking the neighborhood bully in the testicles." Michael had been turning over her abridged version in his mind, wondering if he would ever hear the whole thing. Now seemed as good a time to ask as he would find. "It was lucky for her you were walking down the street at the right moment. Wasn't it?"

Her lips were drawn into a hard line. "Michael, I told you what happened."

"To Medb," he said softly. She looked at him briefly, at his nose instead of his eyes. In the years he'd known her, Fiona had said a few things, usually when she was drunk, that made Michael suspect someone had done something to her. She needed a knight in shining armor like his mother needed more flowered afghans in her living room, but when she got vulnerable, it chipped off pieces of him. And right now, with her wide eyes staring resolutely at the couple solving crimes on television, and her bottom lip clenched between her teeth, he wanted to tuck her against him and-

Do something, anything to keep her safe.

Which would be ridiculous. Because this was Fi, for Christ's sake, and she would elbow him in the gut if he tried. But he put his hand next to hers, so she could feel the warmth of his skin. She turned her palm into his and took it. "What was his name?"

"Aidan," she said, low in her throat, like a curse. "It happened because I had a boyfriend. My first proper boyfriend," Fi almost laughed when she admitted it. "Theo. My brothers kept threatening to break his arms if he ever touched me, so I had to sneak out and see him." She cleared her throat. "Aidan and I had some words before." _Words_ was code for Fiona humiliating him, probably in front of his friends. "So he had an eye on me, I guess. I thought I could handle him. I thought, with my brothers' reputation, he wouldn't try anything. Stupid, cocky mistake, I know. You don't have to tell me." She was glaring at him, but Michael stayed silent.

When he didn't rise to the bait, Fi looked down at her lap again. Her shoulders were slumped, and the edges of her looked like they'd been burned. "One night, I snuck out to meet Theo. We lived near a church, my brothers and I used to play football in the big field behind it. Theo and I used to meet at a particular tree there. It was chilly. I was wearing a skirt and these horrible striped purple legwarmers. I cut through an alley to get to the church. And Aidan must have been following me, but I didn't hear him until I entered the alley. I panicked. So stupid. Unforgivably stupid. I tried to run and he knocked me into the wall. It was so narrow, my brothers had taught me to fight, but it was so narrow, I couldn't get a good swing with my legs, and he had my face pressed against the wall, and it was a tactical disaster. I should have turned and fought him at the entrance, kicked his knee out and smashed his head in." She was far away, reliving her actions and twisting her hands like he wanted to wring Aidan's neck. Michael laid his hand over hers.

"You fought, Fi," he told her. His throat was so tight he was surprised he could speak at all. She looked up and met his eyes then. "You were fifteen-"

"Fourteen," she said softly.

He had to swallow. "Fourteen. I know you fought as hard as you could."

"He had me against the wall, but I got off a scream, a good scream, before he put his hand over my mouth. Then I closed my eyes and I kept trying to think of what I should do, but I don't know- Nothing, my head wouldn't work right. Then the man, this man who owned the bicycle shop by the church, he heard me. He came down the street with a lantern, calling for the goddamn garda that was never around when he bleeding needed them, were they?" She closed her eyes, hearing his footsteps and broad Irish voice in her head. "He was a good man. Aidan loosened his grip, just a little, and I practically dislocated my shoulder doing it, but I got away. My legwarmers- they were ruined, I had to throw them away in a trash can before I went back home. What possessed me to wear purple legwarmers back then." Michael squeezed her hand tighter, and she shook her head. "I never told my brothers about it, because people would have been fishing his body out of the river, and I wanted to deal with him myself."

"What happened to him? After?"

"Went to jail, you'll be glad to know, and got his head bashed in by some inmates. Couldn't have happened to a nicer fellow. If I'd known that was in his future, I might have pulled the kick a little." She grinned at himl. "But probably not."

"So you were following him around after that night, checking out his haunts. Strategizing." Michael had never been so proud of her. He pictured the young Irish woman she'd been the first time they met, with a store of curses and plans that weighed more than she did.

"'Course. What would you expect from a Glenanne, Michael?" She grabbed an apple off the nightstand and bit into it, piercing its flesh and licking a drop of juice off her lip. "You should tell me a story about a tactical disaster of yours now. It would make me feel better, and that would be very _husbandly_ of you."

He just shook his head, grinning at her. Fiona reached out her hand, so slow he could watch the grace of the movement. She stopped inches away from his cheek, not touching him, but close enough that he could feel the heat from her fingers. "This scar here. How'd you get it? Don't tell me the story about the Russians again, because that was bullshit."

Michael wanted to draw away, but Fi's face was so open and he could hear her Irish voice in her head, see her teenaged face pressed against the wall of that dirty alley. He spoke flatly, but he spoke. He gave her this. "I woke up early one morning. My dad was working nights. I was jumping on my bed, I knocked something over. He came in and hit me. I fell onto this lamp, this Darth Vader lamp on my nightstand."

"How old were you?" she asked quietly.

"Young. Second grade. It was a Saturday. You know, when you're a kid and you always got up early on the weekends, so excited to have a whole day all to yourself. Like that day could change your whole life." He paused, surprised. " I remember I was going to eat as many bowls of cereal as I could stuff down."

"What did Maddie do?"

"He was working nights, wasn't he? And I woke him up. I _antagonized _him. So it was my fault. He couldn't get back to sleep for the rest of the day." He looked at his hands. He saw his father reaching for him, in the dark, in the sun, in the rain, through the years. Always coming. "I knew before it happened that it was going to hurt. They threw away my lamp too."

"I can't imagine Maddie being like that." Fiona wrinkled her brow, thinking about the kindness of the woman she knew. "Not that I don't believe you," she added, "but I guess your mother didn't want to see your father for what he was anymore than these people want to see the real Ike."

"All we needed was the other to help us out," he said, intending it to be a joke, but it came out sounding so pathetic. "Or the A-Team."

"You know, I would have enjoyed kicking that son of a bitch's ass. Maybe more than I'll enjoy kicking Ike's."

They smiled at each other, knowing what the other wanted to do, and what they would have to settle for.

* * *

It only figured that with the turn the night had taken, the dreams would come. He woke up in a dark place, pain twisting into his side. So much pain he could only clench his jaw and moan. Part of him wondered why he was there again, but logic was distant in the face of the searing inside him.

And then there was her hand. "Michael," she was saying, over and over. He opened his mouth, finally able to scream for her, and she pressed her cheek to his forehead. "It's only me and you, Michael. It's only us here." He opened his eyes, looking around wildly, and she stayed there until he realized she was telling the truth, and the pain faded.

"We have a big day tomorrow, so no more of this." She touched his face once more, waiting for his nod. Then she crawled back over the pillows, but she slept facing him that night. He knew she did it so he could look at her and use her to center himself. "Think of happy things and you'll have happy dreams," she murmured, already half-asleep and he wondered what horror she was visiting on Ike in her head to make her grin like that.

"Being fake-married is making you bossy," Michael muttered, letting his eyes drift closed on her face.

**Author's Note:** So... that was sad but they're getting closer, right? And I think that means next chapter should be very smutty. If you guys are still interested in smut, that is. Are you?

Please review! It really does makes me type faster.


	12. On the Tip of Your Tongue

**Author's Note**: O.M.G. Two chapters in two days! You see what the indescribable wonderfulness of y'all's reviews has done to me? (I really hope I haven't built this up too much now, but: smut ahoy!)

12. On The Tip of Your Tongue

Fi slept badly that night, but she didn't feel tired when she finally threw the sheets aside and got up. Michael was already awake, of course. She always wondered if it was sleeping with someone else that made him so eager to get away. She could have done without it last night—at least the waking up and checking on him part.

Once, it seemed like he was having another nightmare. He was jerking his legs and mumbling something. Then his shoulders went up around his ears, and he started kicking frantically, his arms twisted back behind him. When she touched one arm, his muscles were hard knots of tension under her fingers. She rubbed at them, sliding her hand up to his shoulder, back down to his wrist. He finally sighed and went still. She watched him for a few more minutes, but he was peaceful. Her last thought, in an unguarded twilight sleep, was to wonder what dream he had fallen into. Was he dreaming of her?

As she toweled off and dressed, she tried not to think about it. She did up her shirt, another plain button-down, and looked out the window. The woman across the street was mowing the lawn. Two more speed-walked past, pushing a pair of strollers. Fi thought she'd give anything for a taste of petty crime: a purse thief, some graffiti, even hooligan kids skateboarding on the sidewalk.

She checked the cameras before she went down to eat. Zoe was in the kitchen, making breakfast for Ike as he sat there and let her wait on him. Fi hooked on a pair of dangly earrings and smirked. _Wait until it all comes crashing down around you, buddy,_ she thought to herself, tracing her finger over him on the screen. _No people waiting on you in jail._

Michael was on the phone, talking to Alexander in Russian. He nodded at a notepad on the table. He'd sketched out the outline of the shelter with the empty rooms marked. She made herself toast and oatmeal and by the time she finished eating, he was finally done with Alexander.

"Not pleased with our progress?"

"He is, actually. But I think he may want Ike dead more than you. Remind me to keep the two of you apart until this is done."

She thought about Alexander's fist on the table at their first meeting, and her own little sister's face. How she looked, all made-up in her coffin, wearing her rosary and Fi's favorite bangle bracelets. "No, I don't think anyone wants to hurt Ike more than Alexander does," she said softly. She pushed away from the table. "Ready to go?"

Fi had Amy's address from the Mornington phone book (more of a pamphlet than a book, really) and her house was a couple blocks to the west. Michael took her hand as soon as they left the house. It was starting to feel natural, how he always reached for her. She knew if she wasn't careful, she'd get to depend on it.

They found her home easily, mostly because it was plopped next to a purple monstrosity. The two-story house next to Amy's modest place was made up of add-ons done in every possible style, complete with a tower and stained glass windows placed in an apparently random pattern along the second floor.

"I don't think she's home," Michael said after a couple minutes of knocking. "Driveway's empty. No lights are on."

"Fuck," Fi muttered. She glanced at the monstrosity again. "Thank god we didn't end up living next to _that_."

"Yeah. Look at that architecture. We'd never get a good camera angle."

She started to roll her eyes at him and then noticed a small elderly woman watering the plants on the porch. She was leaning over to examine a bird of paradise planted on the side of the house when she looked up at Fiona and Michael.

"Hello there!" she called. "You're Amy's friends! We met the other day, when you were going down to the church." She made her way down the stairs and across the lawn. "I'm afraid she isn't here today. Took Hannah to visit her in-laws. Did you need her for something?"

"Oh, no," Fi said, pulling Michael along as went to meet Millie. "We were just hoping to visit. I've heard so much about the baby; we wanted to come by and see them today. Is she going to be back this afternoon?"

"I think they were going for the whole day. It's Michael and Valerie, isn't it?" When they nodded, she gave them a crinkly grin. "Would you like to come over and have some iced tea? I made some fresh this morning for my granddaughter."

They both thought of Maddie's tea, and the fact that they managed to smile and accept pleasantly with this in their head spoke to their acting talents. "This is such a lovely house, Millie," Fiona remarked as they walked up to her raised porch. She had hanging plants and potted ones everywhere, along with two rocking chairs, one adult and one child-sized, both painted a dull red.

She laughed. "What a sweet girl you are to lie to me." She opened the front door, leading them into a hallway decorated with ornate gilded mirrors and two loaded-down coat stands. The parlor was just as bizarre: heavy, old-fashioned furniture done in dark purples and greens surrounded by still more plants and, on the walls, snapshots of lots of different dogs. "I know it's hideous, and the inside is just as bad!"

Michael and Fiona looked at each other, both thinking of Maddie again. Somehow Fi thought she and Millie could have been great friends.

"My husband built it," she explained, as she waved them to sit while she wandered into the kitchen to get the tea. "He would get an architecture book from the library and tell me, 'Sug, I think a tower is just what this house needs!' and the next thing I know, everyone in the neighborhood would be standing in our yard watching while he pppbt! Plopped one up there." She returned with a big silver tray, and Michael stood up to grab it from her. "Thank you, Michael. He wasn't much of a builder, but it was his passion. That and dogs," she added, gesturing to the pictures around them. "We had a dog named Michael once. Yellow lab. Not very bright. Got hit by an orange truck and lost a leg. Now," she passed them glasses of tea and a plate of shortbread cookies. "Why don't you tell me- Ah, there she is."

The redheaded teenage girl from the supermarket walked in and did a double take. "Um. Hi."

"Dear, introduce yourself properly and sit down, I'm pouring your tea."

"Hi, Valerie. Hi, Michael, I'm-"

"Dolores," Fi finished. "From the video section. I finished watching_ The X-Files _last night. I was going to come by today and return it. I thought you'd be in school today."

"I'm actually home-schooled," she admitted. "I'm supposed to be interviewing Grandma for a living history project today. Technically, you're supposed to do two grandparents, but she's the only one I have, so..."

"Well, your other grandfather was a terrible alcoholic who beat his wife, so that's not a surprise. Now, let's see. Where did the two of you move from, how did you meet, what do you do, and what brought you to town?"

Fi almost choked on her tea as she tried to hold back her laughter. Both it and the cookies were excellent. Hmm. Maybe she and Maddie would have ended up hating each other instead. Michael answered, "California, we worked together, I'm in software development, she was in public relations, and we moved here to settle down and start a family."

"I'm a Scorpio, and he's a Gemini, so that's basically us in a nutshell," Fi laughed. "Right, honey?"

"They lived in Los Angeles," Dolores told her grandmother, staring at the two of them with her chin propped on her folded hands, "but they've been everywhere. Valerie used to live in Paris."

"And now you're here," Millie remarked with a quirked brow. "I can't imagine how bored the two of you must be. Please tell me you're not followers of Zoe who saw her somewhere and moved here."

They exchanged a look, then glanced at Millie again. "Grandma doesn't like Pastor Zoe very much," Dolores whispered to them, blushing. That girl must spend half her life blushing, Fiona mused and resolved to try and bold her up a bit, in between breaking down the whole Ike-Zoe-Amy situation.

"I may be old, Dolores, but I'm not deaf," she sniffed. "And it's not that I don't like her. I like her fine _as a person_, but that is what she is. _A person_. Not the Savior of Humanity, and I'm not one of those people who's going to follow her around saying so just because she brought jobs back to town."

"She saved the town, Grandma."

"Some things aren't meant to be saved. Didn't you ever read _Pet Sematary_? Oh, you didn't, did you? Well, I have a copy somewhere, and then you'll see what I mean! If what they're doing down at that church is saving the town, then you can elect me president of the committee to bury it."

"What do you mean? What _are _they doing at the church?" Fi asked, leaning forward. "I mean, Zoe and Ike seem like such nice people. And you're friends with Amy, aren't you?"

Dolores was sending Millie a 'don't you dare embarrass me' glare, and Millie was sipping her tea and looking for all the world like a sweet, innocent old lady. Then, of course, she opened her mouth. "Amy is a perfectly sweet girl and a wonderful mother, but-"

"Grandma, you promised Daddy you weren't going to gossip like this anymore!"

Millie looked like she had a lot of possible responses to that question, but the one she went with was lofty. "I do not gossip. I acquire and disseminate information. I have that cross-stitched on a pillow somewhere from your Aunt Lena. Now, I'm not saying I know anything for a fact, and I do love Amy like family, practically, but I have had five children and I do not believe she ever carried that baby or any baby." The room went silent.

Dolores sighed heavily. "She had a stroke. A few years ago. Well, you did!" she exclaimed when Millie started to speak again. "And Amy _was _pregnant. I mean, she got fat and everything, and she went to the doctor all the time."

"That doctor is her aunt by marriage, as you well know, and she sings lead soprano in the choir of Zoe every single Sunday besides."

"Everyone in this town is related, Grandma, that doesn't mean anything."

"I know what I know," Millie said and folded her lips.

"That seems pretty unbelievable, Millie, I have to say," Michael ventured. "If Amy didn't have the baby, where did she get it? I assume no one else's babies went mysteriously missing around that time?"

"And who would know if they had?" Millie waved a hand. "The sheriff and the doctor and the lawyer are so far up Zoe's heinie they can tell you what she had for dinner last week."

"For pete's sake, Grandma. Next you're going to be saying that Zoe and Ike and everyone else are involved in this conspiracy to steal babies."

"You can sit there and think I'm a crazy old bat, but I buried my parents, three sisters, a brother, a husband, a daughter, and forty-eight dogs, and I know when the butter's gone bad, Dolores Jean. And might I remark that you started being so defensive of them when that boy you have a crush on came to town. I'm right happy your mother won't let you go down there and see him; he's too involved in that business for my liking."

Dolores buried her face in her hands and shrieked something like, "Stop, please!"

"What's his name?" She looked over at Dolores, who didn't respond. "Garth? Something like that," she waved her hand again. "He and his mother are staying down at that so-called shelter out of town. Poor thing."

Fiona and Michael were having a lively debate with their eyes. Finally, Fi pursed her lips and he gave her a go-ahead gesture. "Have either of you ever seen this woman?" She held out her cell phone, linked to a picture of Olga's passport photo.

Millie lifted her glasses from a string around her neck to her face. "Why, no. I don't believe so. She looks sickly, so I'd probably remember. Who is she?"

"Dolores?" Michael pressed, watching her closely. "Do you know her?"

She moved her shoulders. "I mean, I don't know. She- I used to- I mean, it happened that I was down at the shelter once delivering groceries with my dad, and I saw her. I mean, it looked like her. But she wasn't so thin. I think, I _thought _she was pregnant. But that was a few months ago," she added hastily.

"Tell us what happened, exactly."

Dolores inched closer to her grandmother, who looked from her to Michael to Fi and back again. "I was just- I went to the bathroom, and when I walked down the hall, Ike was coming out of a room-"

"Where was it? Across from the bathroom?"

"Yeah, I think so. Maybe across and down a little bit. There's a main hall and a side hall, and the bathroom I used was on the side hall, furthest away from the corner where they met."

"Are you sure it was Ike?"

"Yeah. I mean, when he saw me he shut the door and started talking to me about school and stuff. But I had already looked in the room and that woman was in there and someone else, and they were talking."

"Did she see you?"

"I don't think so. She didn't look at me. Why? Who is she?" Dolores clutched at Millie's hand.

Fi slid her cell phone back in her pocket and Michael straightened a bit on the couch. "Dolores, look at me." He waited until she did. "I need to know who the other person was in that room. I know, you didn't see her, but if I told you to guess, who's the first person that comes to mind?"

"She," Dolores stopped. "She had the same shoes as Gavin's mom," she said slowly. "White lace-ups like the kind Aunt Lena wears."

"My daughter," Millie explained. "She was a nurse, like this boy's mother."

"How do you know that?" Fi asked, impressed.

"Oh, I looked it up online. She got addicted to pills at work, went to jail, lost custody of her son. Then she showed up here. Lost her state license, but I suspect that doesn't matter much to Ike or Zoe." Millie looked at them hard. "Does it?"

"What is going on?" Dolores exploded. "Who is that woman? What happened to her?"

"I don't think they can say, dear."

"But you're not in any danger," Fiona said, placing a reassuring hand on Dolores's knee. "Just stay away from the church, and everything will be fine."

"Are you the police?" she whispered.

Millie snorted. "Not likely. I knew you weren't in computers, whatever-your-name-is. Not with an ass like that."

Michael blinked. Fi burst out laughing.

* * *

They didn't particularly like involving innocent people in their plans, especially when one was a scared teenager and the other was a, well, someone who was likely to go off half-cocked at the drop of a hat. But they'd gotten dropped in their laps, and Michael and Fi weren't stupid enough to pass up an opportunity. Fiona charmed her way onto the old woman's computer to see the information she'd found about Gavin's mother. Dolores followed her, torn between wide-eyed fascination, trembling disbelief, and flat-out fear.

Meanwhile, Millie roped Michael into doing her a "little favor," which involved scraping a month's worth of leaves off her back roof. Fi wasn't sure if it actually needed to be done to keep the roof from caving in on her, as Millie claimed, or if she just wanted to sit in a lawn chair and watch him do it. Then again, Fi thought as she tilted her head and watched Michael peel his shirt off, who could blame her?

Fi printed a pack of pages to add to their reading material at home. She reiterated to Dolores that everything would be fine, as long as she stayed away from Ike and Zoe, and most importantly, didn't tell anyone about her grandmother's theories.

"I won't, I promise," she told her fervently. "No one would believe me anyway. About any of this."

"You can't even tell Gavin, Dolores, I'm serious." She grabbed the girl's hand. "This is important."

"I won't, Valerie. I swear on my mom's life."

Michael came in shirtless, with a flushed Millie following very close behind. "Ready to go?" he asked, swiping his arm over his forehead. Fi nodded and he spared a glance at Dolores. "Did you tell her-"

"Yeah, she gets it."

"Now, I want you to tell me the rest of that story someday," Millie called out as she stood on the porch, hugging Dolores to her side and watching them leave.

Fi hollered back, "You bet. Real soon." Michael took her arm and they walked off at a break-neck pace. Back at the house, Fiona went through the surveillance from the bug for the last few hours, and Michael half-listened as he read Gavin's mother's information. The church tapes were boring- mostly Zoe practicing her sermon, plus a talk with the choir director about the coming weekend's service.

Michael stood up and peeled his shirt off, then his jeans. He stood in the corner in a pair of snug briefs and Fiona couldn't help staring at his ass. It was Millie's fault for putting it in her head, but there it was. She saw his head turn and whipped hers away immediately. "I'm going to take a shower," he announced. She made her face bland and nodded.

When the water came on, she leaned back against the pillows and sighed. There was something to be said for sexual tension but this had gone over the edge to torture. She was dangerously horny and missions didn't go well when she was this frustrated. She turned down the volume on the discussion of hymns. Then she let herself think about Michael. His back and chest and, oh god, his perfect, flat, muscular stomach, as he worked on the roof. The way his jeans clung. That stupid, amazing grin of his, like a sucker punch.

She stood up and ripped off her modest clothes, sliding into a spaghetti-strap sundress that was much more Fiona than Valerie. She laid back down, her head falling against the pillows. She parted her legs and slid her hand up her thigh, moving under her dress and over her panties. This was an amazing idea, she told herself. She'd get some relief, and he would never have to know. The water was still going full-blast, so she had enough time. Fi closed her eyes to better imagine Michael's hands on her body, smoothing over her hip again and again. But this time, he grinned up at her, bit her iliac crest, and traced his tongue, lower and lower, paying attention to every curve and every dip. She slid her fingers inside herself, pushing, reaching for that elusive release.

But then other thoughts came unbidden into her head. His eyelashes casting small shadows on his cheeks, the way he reached for her on the street, how he had listened to her last night when she told him her secret. She wanted the heat, the desperate, the basic, and she couldn't get her mind off the sweet.

_Okay, Fiona. Focus. Focus. Michael, standing in the doorway. He's all sweaty from work, he forces your knees apart, and-_

She opened her eyes and saw Michael. In the doorway. The water still on, steam billowing out of the bathroom. He had a towel clinging even lower than his jeans did, and he looked strong and lickable, and he was watching her. Or actually, watching her hands.

He moved forward, finally raising his eyes. She wanted to blush, which was ridiculous, because she did not blush, ever. He knelt on the bed near her feet, leaning forward between her knees. She realized she was still touching herself and began to pull her hands away, two fingers glistening with her own moisture. He grabbed it, and with a low moan, sucked her fingers into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around them, down to her palm. She held his gaze the entire time, already too close to begging. When he finally released her with a final hard suck, she instinctively raised her arms and legs, wrapping herself around him.

At first she wondered if he was hesitating because of the last time they had been together, but when he cupped her face in his hands, she knew it was the thought of what had happened in that alley that was bothering him.

"Don't think about it," she told him. "Just-" She pulled his head down and kissed him, brief but hard and full of meaning. "Make this good for me, Michael."

He nodded almost imperceptibly and eased her down. "Let's get this off," he said teasingly. He stripped her dress up and away, then eyed her modest Valerie panties. "Those are different," he said, tracing the lacy edge just under her navel. He raised his eyes to hers, his gaze burning her down to her bone marrow. "I like them better like this," he told her as he peeled them down her legs. He continued tracing over her, so gentle and light, while he nuzzled the pulse point at the base of her neck and the hollows of her collarbones. He kissed the curves of her shoulders and her narrow wrists. He licked the sweat gathering between her breasts and sucked her nipples hard and long, like he had her fingers. Like he knew she liked.

He wasn't talking, and she was chewing her tongue to keep quiet, because if she talked, _I love the way you touch taste hold me_ would come out, and that would be awkward. She watched his teeth bite her hip, then tug her skin into his mouth. He left a mark the same size as his thumbprint.

"Talk to me," she whispered when he let go.

He paused and looked at her. She had always been the talker, and Fi wondered if he could give her this, even if he wanted to. "You're so delicate," he said at last, squeezing her hip again. He lowered his face to her stomach, pressing open-mouthed kisses across it. "And you're so strong," he murmured. "My beautiful girl," more air than words as he felt her muscles tense up on a wave of desire.

She held and rubbed and caressed him, wordlessly urging him forward. He had his briefs on under his towel and when she discovered that she hissed in reproach. Then she scraped her nails along his ass, squeezing the muscles he'd worked hot and sweaty.

"Plenty of time. After I have every single drop of you," he said, punctuating each word with a kiss down her thighs. He finally reached his intended destination, and just the sight of him, of his tanned, long-fingered hands touching the most intimate, vulnerable part of her, made her want to squirm. He held her thighs apart, spreading her so wide the emptiness and want made her ache.

"Fuck! Like that, just like that," she moaned when he licked up her trembling thighs to the heart of her.

"I remember. You'd be surprised what I remember," he whispered. He touched his lips to her again, tasting her almost delicately, while his eyes scraped down and up her body, rubbing her raw. Fi was not as vain as she sometimes pretended, but she was always strangely pleased that she invoked this in him. He saw her, and even without the words, she always knew she was beautiful to him.

"So beautiful," he muttered, like he was reading her mind. She was almost there already, and his mouth was so relentless. He traced a hot circle around her clit with the point of his tongue, then took her between his teeth, and she came in a long, noisy arch, her body rocking up against his restraining hands.

She was impossibly wet, she could feel it dripping down her thighs to his hands. He slid his long finger inside her easily, and she was so sensitive she almost shot through the roof. Fi fisted her hand in his hair and jerked, hard. "Michael, I can't, I can't—"

"I know. It's okay." He kept his finger still, using his other hand to rub her stomach, her ribs until she could take in a full breath. "I'm going to make this very good for you, Fi. Do you know how perfect you feel?" His voice saying her name seemed as intimate as his finger inside her. He added another and began massaging her entrance, slowly. "This spot right here? You're all smooth and hot and swollen. You feel like you're going to break, don't you?" She thought she nodded but maybe she just moaned. "I want to do that to you, Fi." He curled his fingers, slid them deeper. "I could do this forever." His breaths were as shallow and loud as hers. "I'm afraid I'll start touching you and never stop. Just like this." He stretched her now, leaning in again to flick her with his tongue and trail a line of fire down until his tongue slid smoothly inside.

She rose up again, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly, her eyes shut. He sucked the tremors out of her, following her body as she arched and collapsed. He groaned in pleasure, the sound coming up from deep in his chest, and hearing it made her shudder. When he sat up, he closed her legs, her thighs rubbing together wetly. Her eyes were closed, but she could feel him leaning over her, watching her flushed face. Her nipples were still hard and deeply pink, and he cupped her breast in one hand, grazing his fingers across her. "Was that good?"

She didn't respond except with a slow, very wide smile. She opened his eyes and saw him returning it, and she wrapped her legs around him again. She pushed up with her hips and stomach- she was strong, he was right about that- and then she shoved him over and ran a teasing hand down his stomach. She lowered his briefs just enough and hummed, satisfied, when she finally got her hands on him. She coated her palm in the wetness leaking from his head, then slid down. "You're so tight, I bet I could make you come like this, couldn't I? Four strokes, five, six," she counted off.

Michael watched her, his eyes narrow desperate slits in his face. He was doing a good enough job controlling his breathing, but she could see his throat moving as he swallowed hard, trying to stave off his release. "You like my hands on you," she purred, and despite how hard she had come, she had enough residual lust to rub herself along his thigh. He was the one who closed his eyes now, bent his head back. She twisted her wrist to complete the moves she knew he preferred. He grew even harder in her hand and she slowly licked her lips. "But not as much as you'll like this. I'm going to take really good care of you."

"You- you don't have to," he gritted out as she lowered her mouth to him. She paused with her lips parted above him.

"Don't you want me to?" she said softly, her very breath a desperate temptation. She could see him throbbing, see how much he needed this. "Don't you want me to help you?"

He stared at her for a moment, like he couldn't take his eyes away even when he wanted to. She loosened her hand around his smooth, burning skin, moving quick and light over him. Michael grabbed her wrist.

"Don't fucking tease me."

"You said I didn't have to," she said without thinking, and his eyes immediately went shuttered and cold. His hand dropped away.

"You don't." He sat up, carefully pushing her aside and swinging his legs off the bed.

"Michael, I didn't mean it like- I'm not that much of a bitch. Just come back," she said, her voice so after-sex husky she knew he would give in. "I'll give you something special." She rubbed herself against his back, warm and willing.

She could feel him holding himself up, barely clinging to control. The word kept out strangled. "Why?"

Fiona moved away. "You won't take anything from me, will you?" she said, so softly he could barely make out the words. She crawled to the opposite side of the bed and turned to walk away.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Her footsteps slowed. She glanced over her shoulder and saw he had raised his now near-obscene briefs and had one leg into his jeans. "You don't know? You've actually forgotten?"

He glanced down at her naked body again. "What do you mean I won't take things from you?"

"It's the most fucking cliched answer in the world, Michael. I told you I loved you, I tried to give you something, and you didn't do anything! You made it into _nothing_." She picked her dress up off the floor and shimmied back into it. "You give me things, but then you turn away from me. You won't take a fucking orgasm now? You don't want me to reach you, fine, but stop-"

Michael was suddenly in front of her, seizing her arms. He backed her into the wall, slowly. She could have gotten away at any time, of course, but the look in his eyes was familiar. He was angry, angrier than she'd seen in a long time**. **"You think you don't reach me? You think I don't _take_ things from you?" He laughed bitterly, gripping her chin to keep her from looking away. "Really, Fiona?" She opened her mouth to speak, and he shook his head a little. "You think I don't know you love me?" he whispered.

**Author's Note**: I hope that lived up to all expectations. The title is from a great country song by the band Highway 101:  
_"__Come on_  
_It's on the tip of your tongue_  
_So easily done_  
_Such a small request_  
_Oh, babe_  
_You got something to say_  
_Don't keep me waiting_  
_Don't make me guess_  
_Oh, do you love me? _  
_Just say yes."_

So, do you?


	13. What We Are

**Chapter 13.**

Fucked-up.

It was so fucked-up. He had Fi's lithe body in front of him, smelling deliciously of sex and life and _her_. If they were anywhere close to normal, he would be buried inside her right now, listening to her wild, ragged noises until they were sweat-shiny, limp, and boneless. Instead, he was looming over her, barely able to think because he was so pissed.

"The times you come through for me, when you showed up with Sam, both of you telling me what an idiot I was. I knew it then. Every day you could have left and you didn't, I knew. Every time you kissed me goodbye or you said my name or you came with me inside you, I knew, Fiona. And every time, I knew I should make you stop, I should make you leave-"

"You couldn't," she shot back, jabbing her finger into his chest, "because you are not the fucking master of me, Michael. I will leave when I want to leave and not before." She was standing lightly on the balls of her feet, and her Irish had come up so she was almost as angry as him.

"How long is it going to take you to understand I've done? I took your _family_ away from you, your home. I've almost gotten you killed again and again. I've hurt you, and now-"

"Now you're going to punish yourself because of our lives and all this shit that has nothing to do with you!"

"Nothing to do with me? Fi-"

"And it has nothing to do with you wanting to protect me either. You're just hiding."

They were grappling; she slapped him and jerked against him, he twisted her wrists back and pinned her to the wall. She angled her face up, dominated by those beautiful, flashing hazel-green eyes. Michael dropped his arms and let her go, his spine slumping into a posture of defeat and resignation. "Look at us." He pressed his hands to his forehead. "I'm hurting you. I don't want to hurt you anymore."

"I know this complicates your life, Michael." He didn't have to look at her face to see the pain bruising it. Bone deep. "I complicate your life. I have my pride, you know. I never wanted to ask you for something you couldn't give. If you don't want me the way I want you-" She broke off and sighed.

He swallowed, tasting her on his lips and tongue and wanting her and hating himself, and he dropped his hands. The thought of his life without her, his simplified nights, his carefully-executed plans, made his throat clench. "I want you so much," he muttered, his words coming dark and quick as he leaned into her. He ghosted his fingers over her lips, barely a touch, feeling the moisture and the heat. "Every single day. Sometimes I wake up and I have to look at you, and I have these pictures. Didn't know that, did you?" She shook her head, her lips curving a little under his fingers.

"Pictures of you and us in Ireland. Sometimes I hate to look at them because I want the real thing," he brushed his hand over the hair tucked behind her hair, "but sometimes I sit and I look at you and imagine that I never hurt you that first time." His words slowed and broke. "That I never left and we were still there, together. I know I said it would never have worked out and I couldn't have stayed anyway, but-"

"Shut up," she told him, smiling a little more. She brushed her hand over his shoulder and taking it as permission to touch her more, he wrapped his hands around her waist, greedily pulling her against him. "Say it," she commanded in a whisper.

He thought of her plea: _Make this good for me,_ the words imprinted into the Fiona-based pleasure center of his brain forever. "I wish I could."

She went to slap his face again, but even though Michael didn't block her, it didn't have her typical force behind it. "What the fuck kind of answer is that?" She shoved at him, trying to push him back again and again and failing, until he finally jerked her arm against his chest. His hand wrapped around hers, squeezing hard, and he bent his head over it. Inside his grip, she was quivering, all rushing blood and rapid pulses, like a bird. She was so much a wild thing and he had told himself she would never ask him for this.

Fi was struggling not to cry and flushing pink because tears humiliated her more than blood or screams, and he pressed his face into her hair to save them both from having to see it. "I can't," he said after another moment. "I can't watch me hurt you." He pulled back, shaking his head because he couldn't explain it right enough to make her understand. "It would only get worse. And then, I couldn't look at you, ever, without seeing that."

"Why?" She looked right up at him, her eyes dry and somber. That was his Fi, never taking an ounce when she could have a pound. "Is it your job? This stupid burn notice, Michael? That one day you're going to leave me? Because I could have had normal a million times by now if I wanted that. I _dump _normal."

"Maybe you shouldn't." She huffed out an angry breath, ruffling their hair because their heads were bent together and he cut her off before she could strike back. "There's something wrong with me."

"What? What the hell are you talking about, Michael?"

"I can't give you more than I have already and it's not enough. You give me so much, and I don't know how to stop taking it- wanting _everything_," he exhaled desperately.

"I like giving you things, when you actually let yourself take them. If we could both try, try to let each other in, we could make this work. You could have all of me, if you wanted." She touched his lips now, lightly, and grinned when he felt his eyes start to glaze. She was so soft, everything he wanted to sink into, and what she offered was, well, it was everything. Again.

"There's nothing inside me. Fi, even you can't make something from that. With me." He could see in her face how dead he looked now. Gone and empty. Like he would be once she realized this and finally left him.

Fi hugged him. Of all the things he expected, that was on the bottom of the list. Shestood on top of his feet like a child might and wrapped her arms tight around him, laying her head on his shoulder. "That's not true," she said muffledly. "If there was nothing inside you, you wouldn't be doing this. You wouldn't care about the people in this town. You are enough for me." She put her hand on his chest, over his heart. "_You are_."

Michael knew a man in Afghanistan whose granddaughter couldn't feel pain. Her mother had to check her body every day, head to toe, to make sure she hadn't hurt herself. He said they had to teach her everything normal children learned when they were young, what not to touch or jump from. What to run from. She didn't have the words to describe how she felt. Michael could relate that part, which was why he still thought about her sometimes. They didn't think she would live very long and he wondered if she was still out there, if they still checked her over for bruises. If she ever got used to being numbed.

He opened his mouth and heard a pounding. They both turned, tilted their heads. "Someone's at the door," she said, unnecessarily. Michael looked over her shoulder at the camera streaming on the laptop.

"Dolores and Gavin," he told her.

"He's the one her grandmother was talking about," Fi informed him. "The one she has a crush on." She bent around him and picked her Valerie clothes off the floor, began pulling them on. "Go get it, I'll be there in a minute."

He nodded and moved away from her. "Fi, if I could, with anyone, you know it would be you." He looked back at her as she buttoned her jeans up, the shimmy of her hips reminding him he was still half-hard and the look in her eyes reminding him of all the things he didn't know how to say.

* * *

"Thank god, Michael!" Dolores started off when he opened the door. "I wasn't sure what to do or where to go," she grabbed Gavin's hand and pulled him in.

He got the situation in one look. Dolores was nervous but holding on because Gavin couldn't anymore. The kid's eyes were swollen and red-rimmed and he kept swiping his hand under his nose in a nervous tic. "I ran into Gavin on the street. Something's really, really wrong."

"What happened?" he said, taking the boy's arm in his and guiding him to a chair.

"I-I-I got out of class and I went back to the shelter and some of my mom's stuff's gone."

"What? Be specific."

"Her purse, some of her clothes, her-her first aid kit, a duffel bag-" He swallowed and shook his head, hard. "I asked Ike about it and he said that she- that he found out she was stealing and tried to talk to her, but she freaked out and left. But she wouldn't!" Gavin started to cry now, scrubbing at his cheeks furiously. "She wouldn't! She wouldn't leave me again, she promised me." He bent his head down to his knees, a single sob escaping him. "She promised me this time." Dolores started to touch the back of his head and then pulled away. She glanced at Michael anxiously and he nodded. She bent her head down, next to Gavin's, and took his hand.

Fi walked in and looked at Gavin, then at Michael. He shook his head and her face hardened. She sat on the couch, on Gavin's opposite side. "Look at me. We're going to take care of everything. What else did Ike and Zoe say?"

He looked at her and bit his lip. "They said that I could stay and they wouldn't contact social services, I could stay and finish out school here, and they would help me out. But- where is she? I don't believe what they're saying, she's changed, she wouldn't-"

"We know," Michael told him. "Look, your mom was helping Ike do some things that he shouldn't have been. She was covering things up for him. Think back. Has she ever said anything to you that could have been related to that?"

"No, I mean, well, one time she was there with Ike 'cause he counseled the women in the shelter and he told me I shouldn't go down the back hallway because there were some bad cases back there. He said they were labor-intensive, just like that, and I laughed because it sounded funny, and then she glared at me. Sometimes I thought she didn't like them, but she said this was her chance, my chance to have a normal life, and we had to take it. She said everyone had to sacrifice sometimes." He hesitated, then swung his backpack off his shoulder. "When I saw her this morning, she was messing with my backpack, and then I was looking in it for my lunch money, and I found this." He took a cassette from an inside zipper pouch and held it out. Fi took it from him, looked it over, and passed it to Michael. It was unlabeled, made for an old-school voice recorder.

They had nothing to play it on, so Dolores had to run home and get her mom's old boom-box. Michael turned to Gavin as soon as she left. "I know you like it here, but you can't stay. Is there anyone you can call?"

He was sitting on the couch like all the life was seeping out of him into the nubby plaid fabric. "No," he shook his head. "There's no one. Ike and Zoe- they're not good people, are they? They hurt my mom?"

"We don't know that yet," Michael told him, ignoring the sinking feeling he knew everyone in the room had in their gut.

"I wanted to believe in them." He looked down, embarrassed. "I really did. Stupid. People are never what they say they are, right?"

"Some people are," Fi replied. "Some people really are good."

"I'm going to have someone pick you up, take you to a friend of ours in Miami."

"A friend?"

"My mom," Michael admitted. "She'll look out for you until this stuff blows over. And then..." He couldn't think about what would happen to Gavin then. In all likelihood, nothing that great.

"We'll just see what happens," Fi finished.

Gavin looked more hopeless than ever, but Dolores returned, out-of-breath and sweating, with the boom box under her arm. She slammed the door and leaned against it. "Ike was totally standing in his yard and he saw me and waved," she gasped for air, "and I didn't wave back and then he looked at me weird! Oh, my god, he totally knows!"

"Take a breath before you keel over." Fi grabbed the cassette player away from her and shoved her gently onto the couch. Michael went to the window, peering around the curtain. Ike was standing in the yard, talking on a cell phone. He glanced in his direction and Michael smiled and nodded. He returned the gesture, adjusting his glasses.

"He knows," he murmured under his breath. "Fi, go get the-"

"Fi?" Dolores looked from one of them to the other. "What?"

"Never mind," Fi called back, running from the room. "Keep calling me Valerie."

Michael bent down and pressed play. He knelt in front of the speakers, keeping the volume low. It was a crappy recording. Gavin's mom had probably hid the recorder in her pocket in case she needed something for leverage later. He could hear two female voices, indistinct, and Ike's. He was saying something about keeping his promises, didn't she understand that. Everyone had to keep their promises.

"I never promised you my baby!" a woman shrieked. The Russian accent was thick and heavy in her voice. Olga. "I did not make a promise to you, you lie!"

"Shut up, you disgusting bitch!" The second voice was bland and accentless, but now just as clear. "He made promises to me. He promised me he would fix me so I could have a baby, but God said he had to do it through you. That baby is mine. It's meant to be _mine_." It was Amy.

**Author's Note:** I know it's short, but I hope it was worth the wait. I'll try not to take so long with the next part!


	14. The Rescue

**Chapter 14. **

Fi came back with loaded .357s. She passed one to Michael as Dolores watched out of the corner of her rapidly widening eyes. Gavin reached over and replayed the tape, listening to Amy's voice again. "Dolores, can you call your parents to come pick you up?"

She nodded eagerly, then glanced at Gavin. "But- you're going to Miami? Are you going to be okay?" He was picking a bigger hole in the knee of his pants and wouldn't meet her eyes. "Gavin?"

"We're going to have a friend of ours take him to Miami. Don't worry."

"Then what? And what about Amy and the baby and-"

Someone knocked on the door. "Dolores, we don't have time to explain everything, you just have to trust us. Gavin," Fi said, waiting until he looked up at her. "Go to the kitchen." She glanced over at Michael, who was tucking his gun in the back of his pants and moving to the door.

Fi beat him to the peephole. "Zoe and Ike," she whispered. "They know we know about Gavin's mom and we obviously know that _they _know that-"

"You're giving me a headache."

"I'm just saying. Stonewall." She tossed her hair over her shoulders and opened the door with a grin. "Hiya, guys. How are you doing today?"

"Hello, Valerie, Michael. I was hoping," Zoe said, spackling on the charm, "that we could come in and speak to Gavin. Ike said he saw him come over with Dolores Lauria."

"I'm afraid Gavin's mother left our church and the city today, rather abruptly," Ike intoned in his patented deep, concerned voice. "She's been suffering through some very unfortunate problems of late. We tried to speak to her about them, but-"

"I believe she's fallen," Zoe pressed her hand to her mouth and shook her head. "I'm sorry to say it because I know part of it must be my fault. No, no, Ike, it's true. I don't know how we failed her, but we must have."

"You're fucking right you did!"

Fi closed her eyes in dismay before looking over her shoulder at Gavin, standing in the middle of their living room.

"You said you wanted to help us, but y-" Michael grabbed Gavin's arm and half-dragged him back to the kitchen. Fi couldn't hear their exchange but she could tell by the jerk of the kid's head and the set of Michael's shoulders that it was heated.

"I'm sorry," Fi said, turning back to them. "Gavin's very upset about his mother. I don't think he should see you."

"I don't think you should get involved with our business," Ike replied. For a second, his mask slipped and she saw a smirk in his eyes, an absolute certainty that he was going to win. That he already had.

"I think it's too late for that," she stared back at him impassively. The silence lingered between them for a few minutes.

Zoe huffed out a breath and turned to Ike. "Since his mother has abandoned him," she began, a smiling warming her face again, "he has no legal guardian. Ike, I think we should go to the authorities and let them know. Will he be here if we send the police over to talk to him?"

_Shit. _

"If you're that concerned," Michael spoke up as he returned, "we wouldn't mind bringing him to the County Child Welfare Office. It's over in LaBelle, isn't it?"

"Of course, we would have to go by the shelter and pick up his belongings first," Fi put in. "And all of his mother's things, since she's disappeared."

Ike folded his lips. "Why don't we pray on this, honey? We need to be sure we're doing what's best for Gavin. That's the most important thing, isn't it?" When she nodded, he gave Michael and Fiona a final assessing glance. "I hope we didn't upset the two of you."

"No, of course not."

"Have a nice day," Fi finished.

"Of course. Be sure to tell Gavin and Dolores we said hello."

Fi leaned against the closed door and examined her nails. "That went well."

"Guys?" Dolores had crept up the hall to stand in the doorway. "Did they leave?"

"For now. Get Gavin. We need to move him.

"Are your parents coming to get you?" Fi asked, noticing the girl's face had gone even tighter and more worried around the eyes.

"I tried to call them, but my mom, she had an appointment with the eye doctor today and they're dilating her eyes or whatever, so my dad had to drive her, so then I called my grandma, and she said I could come over there or she could come and get me and then she happened to mention that Amy had come home and already left again, so I told Gavin, which I guess I shouldn't have done, because that's when he ran off." She took a breath.

"So Gavin's gone?" Fi summed up, glancing at Michael, who looked utterly frustrated with the kid. It reminded her of his expression when she went off "half-cocked," as Sam would say. "Where did Amy go when she left?"

"Grandma didn't know. She got home and went inside, but then she came back out with Hannah and the baby stuff and left again."

"All right." Michael sighed. "We're going to drop you at Millie's and then go after Gavin." He headed off to the kitchen, as Fi grabbed the boom box. She popped the tape out and shoved it in her pocket.

"Here, put this in your backpack," she instructed, passing it to Dolores. She watched the girl as she struggled to zip up her backpack with shaking fingers, and finally Fi leaned over and put an arm around her shoulders. Dolores hugged her back immediately. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, okay?" She felt the girl's head vibrate with relief as she nodded. "Or Gavin," she added as she pulled away.

"I really want to help you, I'll do whatever I can to make things right for Gavin and his mom and that poor lady on the tape. Are they, y'know, killers? Like when people say they seemed so nice and everything about some guy who kills his whole family, is that actually true? Are their bodies buried in their yard?"

"Possibly, not usually, and I doubt it," Michael said as he came back in with the clean cell and the laptop.

"Don't tell her _possibly_," Fi hissed. "Dolores, the only thing I need you to do is listen to us and do what we say. Okay?" With that, Fi grabbed the laptop in one hand and Dolores's arm in the other. Michael opened the door and pressed the unlock button on the SUV remote, and they went outside. Ike glanced over and lowered his cell phone to watch them. He waved at them and Dolores waved back.

"Was that right?" she asked to Fi as she climbed in the back seat and buckled her seat belt.

"Better than flipping them off," Michael said as he caught a glimpse of Fi's hand gesture.

"We have tinted windows, baby." Baby was not said endearingly. She flipped open the laptop and studied the screen. "Zoe's on the house phone inside." There were several possible conversational partners: someone at the shelter who was getting rid of Gavin's mother and/or her belongings; something responsible for moving the pregnant woman (or women- who knew how many); they could even be checking up on the two of them or tracking down Gavin. Fi was flashing through them all while Michael made a complete stop at the end of the street and turned on his blinker. Fi twitched her feet. "Michael, for fuck's sake!" she exclaimed when he eased along at five under the speed limit.

"This town has us at a tactical advantage, Fiona. The last thing we want to is to get pulled over by Ike and Zoe's personal police force when Gavin's unaccounted for." They were approaching Amy and Millie's houses, and he stopped short when he got an eyeful of the elderly grandmother on the sidewalk, holding an antique shotgun as long as her arm. "What is _she _doing with _that_?"

"Um, did I never mention Grandma's been president of the local gun club for thirty years?"

"No, I don't think you did." Fiona considered. "Thirty years? Hmm." Michael gave her a look. "You have to admit, that's impressive!"

"When my grandpa was alive, they were co-presidents. They met in a sharp-shooting contest," Dolores said, almost proudly, as she leaned over and opened the door for her grandmother. Millie climbed in and took a seat next to her.

"Millie, we're supposed to be leaving Dolores here with you-"

"Oh, no, no, no, Michael or whatever your name is. I'm going with you. You might need help." She adjusted the camouflage ballcap on her head and folded her arms over her chest. "Let's ride."

Fi was biting her lip in an attempt to swallow her smile. Michael gave her a sharp look and she shrugged. He sighed, Dolores threw up her hands, and the car was back on the road again. "Where are we going?"

Five minutes later, they were driving into the setting sun, along the back road leading to the shelter, listening to Millie's story about the escaped fugitive she and her husband tracked through "these very woods. They deputized us and I waited for him out over that rise, huggin' a pine tree for five hours. I never saw a more surprised son of a bitch- sorry, dear- than that one when I jumped out and cocked the rifle against the back of his head."

"Hey, there's Gavin!" Dolores rolled down her window and, before anyone could stop her, called out, "Gavin, wait!" He looked back over his shoulder, but he was closer than they were. They turned into the shelter parking lot just as he jumped the last curb, pulled a key from a chain around his neck, unlocked the door, and ran inside.

"Their van's gone," Millie said as she unbuckled her seat belt. "The folks are probably up at the church working. 'Cept for whoever in there doesn't have to work. That's Amy's car there."

"What should we do?" Dolores leaned forward, peering at the front of the building like she expected to see Ike pop up in a window with a machete.

"You are going to stay in the car," Fi declared.

"If we find anyone inside, we can send them out to you. Can you drive?" Michael asked.

"She's a _kid_, Michael!"

"I can, sort of," Dolores said at the same moment.

"I taught her myself. I always thought those age limits were a big crock. I started driving when I was twelve!" Millie watched Fi check her gun. "You call that a gun?"

Fi lowered her sunglasses and turned around to glare at Millie. "Lady, I've gone on twelve ops with this gun and shot-"

Something crashed inside and they broke off. "Can we continue this later?" Michael asked as he slammed the car door. He glanced towards the shelter door, then at her.

"Yeah, yeah," she pulled her picking tools out of a pocket and crouched in front of the lock. "I won this piece off a one-armed French roller derby coach," she muttered under her breath. "This is a great piece. I could shoot this lock off from across this parking lot if he wasn't such a girl. 'Call that a gun?' Huh." The last tumblers clicked open and she jerked the door open. "And I call _that _picking a lock."

She speared them both with a sharp look as she stomped inside. The main room was deserted, but there was screaming and slamming coming from a hallway. They went toward the noise, Michael and Fi moving quickly, side by side, and Millie keeping a fair pace behind them. They found Gavin red-faced and bloody-fisted with anger.

"Tell me where she is! AMY! Tell me!" He slammed his palms against the door again. The door frame was cheap wood and he had splinters slicing into his palms, but the door itself was reinforced and holding firm.

"Gavin, this isn't helping your mother," Fi said. Michael took a more direct approach, pulling him away from the door.

"This is the room I saw that pregnant woman in last time," he said in a conversational tone as he held his arm against Gavin's neck.

"Yeah," Gavin gasped, "Chloe."

"Is there anyone else in the building?" Fi asked.

"Not supposed to be." Michael eased up, and Gavin took a deep breath to continue. "My mom told me Chloe left, like, two months ago. Another lie. I haven't seen her 'til today. Come on, let me go," he squirmed.

Millie grabbed his hand in hers and the shock of seeing her stopped Gavin for a minute. "Hon, you should go to the car. Dolores is out there and she's real worried about you." He tried to shrug her off, but she held on. Fi gave the old woman points for grit. Even if she did have no taste in weaponry. "This isn't what your mom would want you to do," she said, and Gavin flinched away.

"I'm not going anywhere until I know where my mom is."

"Amy," Fi called, "do you hear that? Gavin's not leaving until he finds out where his mom is. Just open the door, tell him you don't know anything, and we'll take him home." Michael put his gun in the back of his pants, and she grimaced but did the same.

"Valerie, what are you and Michael doing here?" Amy called back, her voice close to the door.

"Gavin thought you knew something about where his mom went. We tried to stop him, but-"

The door opened a crack and Amy peeked out. "Gavin, I don't know what's going on with your mom. I'm down here helping someone. She called me and asked me to come."

"Really?" Fiona asked. "Do you need any help?" She tapped her finger on her hip, another old signal, and Michael moved to the other side of the door.

"No, I think-"

Fiona knocked Amy's hands away and pushed her inside as Michael used his weight to throw the door open. "What's- what are you doing?" Amy shrieked as she backed into the room. The pregnant woman Michael had seen before, Chloe, was lying on the bed. Her eyes were closed and her mouth slack. Amy had the baby in her carrier, resting on the chair. There was a white plastic case on the desk, full of little vials and wrapped syringes.

"What's going on?" Michael asked, looking from the open drugs to the unconscious woman.

"I-I told you, she's having problems. Issues. Zoe called earlier and asked me to stop by and take a look at her."

"Wouldn't that be what Gavin's mom usually did, since she was a nurse?" Fi asked in a sweet, mock-innocent tone.

"Yeah!" Gavin called from the hallway. Millie had posted herself between him and the doorway, which wasn't much deterrent, but then, she did have a good grip on that rifle.

Amy's brow furrowed. "Zoe said Gavin's mom went out of town for something," she fumbled, groping for a good-enough explanation. "Chloe has problems like a lot of people here do, and we're doing what we can to help her. And her baby."

"What's going to happen to the baby? Once it's born?" Fi asked. Amy's eyes flickered and she opened her mouth, but then Millie jumped in.

"Going to Tessa MacNeill's daughter up in Jacksonville, I imagine. God knows they've given enough money to this operation. And the poor thing's had three miscarriages in the past five years. Plus," Millie tapped a finger against her chin, "it seems to me her brother-in-law is in television. If the church is making videos of Zoe's sermons now, wouldn't that be just perfect? Oh, you didn't think I was listening when you were telling me the church news, did you?" Millie chuckled darkly when Amy looked at her, gobsmacked. "They can get Zoe a syndicated show, and she'll be the next Joyce Meyer! And all this lady has to do is give up her baby!"

"Millie, what Chloe's doing is generous and loving. She is a Christ-like person." Amy couldn't even bring herself to look at the woman, Fi noticed. Her gaze skirted the edges of the bedframe. She folded her arms, then unfolded them and crossed to pick up her baby. "I've always known that there was bad blood between you and Zoe, but I cannot believe you would allege something so terrible about her! That she would put her own needs above the people who've come to her for help!" She put Hannah on her shoulder and walked as far away from Chloe and the bed as she could get.

"Gavin," Michael said. He gestured him into the room. "Why don't you pick up Chloe and take her out to the car? You and Millie need to take her to a doctor."

"Preferably one out of town," Fi threw in.

"You can't do that!" Amy objected. "She- I'm responsible for her!"

"But she's not your slave, is she, Amy? She could leave any time she wanted." Fiona looked at the unconscious woman's bitten-down nails, her sunken eyes, and felt a new wave of disgust for what Amy, Ike, and Zoe were doing. "If she was able to." Gavin's hands were still fisted at his side, and he was staring at Amy with hooded eyes. "Gavin," she began softly, "this is what your mom would want. Whatever happened to her, it happened because she was trying to save Chloe. _She _was the Christ-like one." Gavin squeezed his eyes shut and looked down. Millie took the cue and stepped forward to pat his shoulder. Michael was giving Fi a strange look, and she looked away, to Amy and Hannah.

"I'll go with them," Millie said as Michael and Fi turned to look at her. "But I'll be back for the two of you." She gave Amy a final assessing stare. "It'll be dark soon." Gavin bent and scooped Chloe up, staggering once as Fi laid the woman's head on his shoulder.

When the three of them left, Fiona put her hands on her hips and her cards on the table. "Amy, we know about Olga."


	15. Emotionally Devastated Women

**Chapter 15. **Emotionally Devastated Women

Amy flinched visibly, her shoulders hunching in over the baby in her arms. Still, she tried to play it off. "She was a woman who stayed in the shelter for a while. What about her?"

"You don't have anything to say about Olga?" Michael asked skeptically.

"Like why you're holding her baby right now? Why you pretended to be pregnant so you could pass Hannah off as yours? Why we have you on tape telling Olga that you were going to steal her baby because it was 'promised' to you?"

"That- that was a misunderstanding. She had- we-" Her eyes flicked wildly between Michael and Fi, as she backed toward the wall. "Ike healed me. He told me- everyone knew Hannah was meant to be mine. She is _my daughter_!" Her chest rose and fell quickly, and her voice flew up towards frantic.

"Amy," Fi said softly, glancing at Michael and warning him back. "Everyone knows how much you love Hannah. Olga's family asked us to come here to make sure she was being well-cared for, and we can see that she is. But we have to know that Ike and Zoe aren't a danger to her."

"They're not!" Amy exclaimed, practically screaming. "They're not, they would never- she's fine! I would never let anything happen to her!"

"But what did you mean when you said Ike healed you?" Michael asked, leaning against the wall. His body was alert, but frightening her when she was holding Hannah was probably not a good idea.

"He healed Olga and I have her baby. That healed both of us." She shrugged, jerkily, her eyes focusing on a minuscule spot on the wall. She patted Hannah over and over again.

Fiona's stomach began to sink. "Did he try to heal you too, Amy? Before Olga came?"

She nodded vaguely, still staring.

"But it didn't work?"

Amy finally looked at her again, then at Michael. She blushed and turned to face the wall. After a long pause, she finally spoke. "It was my fault it didn't work the way he thought it would. I didn't want it enough."

"Tell us what he did, Amy."

"They've been nothing but kind to me, Ike and Zoe." She turned to face them in profile. Hannah gurgled and Amy looked down. A smile rose on her face like a bird taking flight. "Haven't they?" she cooed, looking down at the baby. "Yes, yes, they have."

"Why he couldn't he heal you?"

"I made a mistake," Amy crossed to the bed, hunching down and curling into herself. "A terrible mistake. Ike tried, but he couldn't-" She covered her face with one hand.

"You failed, but Olga didn't?"

"Olga was a drug addict," Michael tried. "What could she give a baby that you couldn't?"

"My, my mistake, Ike said it wasn't as easy to forgive as hers. He said her family, they forced her to do it. That was why it was different. In Russia, she- they didn't have faith, not like we do. And everyone has them over there."

"Abortions?" Fi asked softly. "Amy, a lot of women have abortions. That has nothing to do with why you couldn't get pregnant."

"That's what the doctor said, but I knew it wasn't true! I knew, when I did it, I knew it was wrong. I told myself it was the best thing because we were in high school." Amy started to cry, tears leaving slow tracks down her cheeks before they plopped on Hannah's head. The baby babbled again, kicked her hands out, and Amy grabbed one tiny fist and pressed kisses to it. "I just wanted to finish school. I told myself no one would ever know, even Chris didn't know. But when we couldn't get pregnant later, I knew that had to be why. I told Zoe and she said I was right."

"And Zoe told Ike? And he came to you. He made you do things you didn't want to do. That's what all this is about. Ike took advantage of you."

"They didn't hurt me, they wanted to help me!"

"So you liked what Ike made you do?"

Amy shuddered, looking away again. "He-he said- he- if I let him- I just _let _him and I prayed the whole time for God to forgive me." She sagged, her whole body drooping. "I needed him to heal me, I needed a baby so bad. I was so empty, it hurt, it hurt inside, I couldn't- please don't, please don't-"

Fi sat down next to her on the bed, placing an arm over her shoulders. She rocked the woman back and forth until Amy put her head against Fi's shoulder and let out a deep, wracking sob. "Please don't punish me," she sobbed, clutching Hannah tighter until she began to wail too. She looked up at Fi, her eyes so desperate and full of pain, Fi wanted to look away. But she couldn't. She looked at Michael, who was still leaning on the wall, his attention focused on Amy. Their type never could.

"We don't want to punish you, Amy," Michael said, finally moving closer to the bed. He knelt in front of them, his eyes intent and green in the fading light. "But you have to think about what's best for Hannah. Ike and Zoe don't care about her." She started to shake her head again, but Michael continued. "Look at what they did to Gavin's mother. She was like you, she was helping them, and you know what they did to her."

"I know you can't see this now, but they are taking advantage of you. Think about what's going to happen to Gavin now that his mother is gone. What would happen to Hannah if you went against Ike and Zoe? Do you want her to grow up without a mother?" Fiona glanced down at Amy's blotchy, snotty face, pressed against her shoulder. She never liked this shirt anyway.

"I-I do- I- don't- I don't know what-" Amy's chest was spasming again, and she started to hyperventilate.

Michael looked out the hallway, his intently-listening face on now. Fi rolled her eyes. The man had the hearing of a blind person. Fi could barely make out the sound of an engine turning off, but Michael glanced back and mouthed _Zoe_.

"Okay, okay, put your head between your legs. Here, it's okay, let me," she wrested Hannah out of Amy's arms and passed her off to Michael. He turned around, practically throwing the bundle of baby down on the desk. "There we go, Amy, just relax. We'll put Hannah in her seat thing, sit here. I'm going to talk to Michael for a minute." Fiona grabbed a wrapped needle out of the open medical case on the desk, went to the window, and started picking the lock with it.

"I don't think we can fit out of that," Michael told her as he came to stand beside her.

"I hate this job, I hate it, I hate it." She twisted the needle a final time, and the lock clicked.

"Yes, Fi, and I relish these moments of watching you manipulate emotionally devastated women because it reminds me of my childhood. I still don't think we can fit through that."

"I think I could," she said, shoving the window up. "And I'll just push Amy through. You're on your own unless you have a better idea." He disappeared. "What are you doing?"

"Better idea. Okay, don't cry. Just don't cry," Michael muttered as he picked the blanket up at both ends and plopped her down in the carrier. "Here we go, in the thing." He moved the carrier to the windowsill.

"You're going to throw her out the window?" Fi hissed.

"What? It's a three-foot drop." He picked a spot on the ground under a nearby bush. He wedged the carrier into the crack. "These things are designed to stay upright."

"Aren't there, like, straps on it or something?"

He had already tossed the carrier out the window. "Too late."

She pressed her face against the glass, trying to make out the shape of the carrier in the growing darkness. "Breaking the half-million dollar baby is a very bad idea, Michael."

"Too late again."

"You BROKE her?" She slapped his arm.

Amy looked up from her dazed weeping, startled. "What? What- what-"

"Too late for the straps. Jesus. I didn't break it. Her. Though I think we've lost her," he gestured to Amy with one hand and took his gun out of his pants with the other.

Zoe's shoes were click-clicking down the hallway, approaching their room. "Amy, why haven't you called me about Chloe? There are things going on. I need you to stay on top of this."

"Speaking of, Sam said he checked their records and they didn't own firearms, right?" Fi asked him.

"Yeah. She seems more like a 'run people down in her Caddy' type anyway."

"Amy?" Zoe appeared in the doorway. Her eyes flashed from Amy to Michael and Fiona, and she actually bared her teeth. "Amy, do not tell them anything."

"Too late." Fi smiled back and pulled her gun out of her pants.

"Amy, what have you done? Do you know who these people are? After everything that we have done for you-"

"Zoe, I-" Amy got up and looked around the room frantically. "Where is my baby?"

"Where is she?" Zoe laughed sardonically. "Olga's family sent them here to steal Hannah away from you. They're going to give her back to those people, and they'll take her to Russia! You'll never see her again!" Zoe taunted over Amy's renewed weeping.

"Why don't you shut the fuck up?" Fiona raised the gun, pointing it at Zoe's head. "Get on the floor," she gestured down. Zoe sank to her knees, slowly, rumpling her perfect white slacks.

"I am not going to let you ruin this for us. Not any of you," Zoe declared.

"You're not in the position to be making demands." Fi walked closer, shoving Zoe face-down with a quick kick to her back. "In case you hadn't noticed."

"What did you do with my baby?" Amy screamed, running at Michael. She fell on him, clawing and flailing, and Zoe took the opportunity to kick at Fiona's ankles, knocking her to the ground. They struggled briefly, Zoe grabbing the leg of the desk chair and toppling it over on top of Fi, who had her pinned down. Michael lifted the chair off her, having tied Amy up in the corner with a handy bedsheet. He managed to grab Zoe's hands while avoiding her manicured fingernails, a feat Fiona hadn't achieved. She had a deep scratch on one cheek, but that was the worst of it. Fiona was trying to catch Michael's eye again when there was a blast and he fell to the ground. She punched Zoe in the face to subdue her and twisted to avoid another shotgun blast to her left knee. When she turned around, there was a smoking circular hole in the desk and Ike was in the doorway, his glasses gone, his combover messed up, and a sawed-off shotgun- that noise, she'd know it anywhere- in his hands.

Through the numbness in her ears, Fi could hear Michael groaning, shouting at her to get out. Ike pointed the gun at Amy, lying near-catatonic in the corner, still tied-up, and said something she couldn't hear. But she knew the look in his eyes. She dropped her gun, crawled off Zoe. She crouched next to Michael and bent over him. It was a leg wound, a few inches above the knee. His jeans and the flesh beneath them were ripped to hell, speckled with buckshot, and oozing blood. She peeled off her shirt and used it to bandage the wound. Michael was watching the encounter in the doorway, gritting his teeth to keep away the pain.

When her hearing came back, she heard Amy crying and Ike talking softly to Zoe. "Do you know what she told them?"

"Everything, probably. You goddamn bitch, the two of you had to ruin everything." Zoe marched into the room like an avenging angel, all righteous rage, and grabbed the desk chair. She brandished it over Michael and Fiona, and Fi moved between the two of them. She brought it down hard again and again, crushing the fingers on Fi's hand. "Liars! Demonic liars!" she screamed, the capillaries in her forehead sticking out like oak tree roots.

"All right, that's enough, Zoe."

"No, it's not, and this one- how could you do this to me, Amy? After everything my husband did for you." She marched over and started to kick Amy in the stomach. "You had to run off your damn mouth! This is because you were such a stupid slut you couldn't even give Chris the baby he deserved. So who pays the price? My husband and I."

Michael stifled a moan as Fi pressed her unbroken hand over her shirt, over his wound. She met his eyes and put all her reserves of _you-will-be-fine _into her gaze. He nodded a little, then moved his eyes over her shoulder. She slowly glanced behind. "Exactly what price did you pay?" he scoffed, to distract them. Her gun was under the bed, almost within reach. He took her other hand, gently, and she braced her arm and her feet. He started to reset her fingers. One.

"Oh, I _always _pay the price for these people's mistakes. They come to me and ask me for counsel, but they don't listen. They never listen. And then they ask me for forgiveness, and they cry on my shoulder, just like you did. Do you think that's what I wanted? To listen to your pathetic problems all day, Amy?" Zoe spit. Michael reset another of Fi's fingers. Two. "Ike was the only one who ever cared about me. My husband was a useless drunk who died sitting next to his mistress on that stupid plane, and I had to raise two boys alone with _nothing_. No one helped _me_. No one even brought me a damn casserole after my husband's funeral! I had to start the group to help other women, to hear them complain about their lives. When I met Ike, he made me into something. He saw what_ I _have to give. He made me realize that I knew everyone's secrets, that I had a gift for getting people to trust me, to tell me things. He got me all of this. Power. People who listened to me. Who respected me."

"Why don't you shut the fuck up?" Fiona said, helping Michael lean against the desk. Three. She curled them into her palm. She got off her knees, keeping her body in a tight crouch.

"What?" Zoe blinked in disbelief.

"You heard me: shut the fuck up," Fiona said again, her voice measured and calm. "I don't want to hear any more of your pathetic whining about your life. No one does, no one cares, which is why no one helps you. You and Ike took advantage of Amy and Olga and Chloe, and soon, everyone will know it. Imagine what they'll say about you. They won't even let you preach on a fucking street corner in this town."

Zoe started screaming again and Fi tensed her knees, ready to stand, to use Zoe's body as a shield while she kicked the gun to Michael.

Before she could move, there was a shot. Two shots, close together. She thought, this is us, dying, and she tried to simultaneously throw her body on top of Michael and make herself smaller to avoid the bullet, knowing she was too late to achieve either. After a few seconds, when she didn't feel any pain, other than the deafness from another shot at close range and the throbbing in her hand and other small aches and tears, she wondered if this was what death was like. Silence, while everything drained out of you, the pain the last thing to leave. Then her hearing came back, and Amy was screaming.

She sat up and the first thing she saw was Zoe, the top of her head missing and the look in her eyes pure shock. Blood dripped down what was left of her face, ran onto her navy blue polo and stained it royal purple. Fi felt wetness on her arm and looked down. There was blood, fresh blood, spatter, on her shirt, her pants.

She had landed sprawled on top of Michael's chest, her head had been buried in the center of his rib cage. He had his arm heavy across her back, like he had been trying to shield her too, or pull her closer, and her knee was poking into his leg wound. He should have been howling in pain. He should have been looking at her. She moved her eyes up, over his t-shirt and his strong shoulders and his neck. Found his head, turned away from her.

Running shiny with blood.

**Author's Note:** I rewrote this chapter like twelve times and now I'm sick of looking at it. I have about three more left to go and I hope to have them up soon (really! I swear!). Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and kept reading. I don't think I've said it lately but I think it every day: you guys have a terminal case of awesomeness.


	16. Godforsaken, Part Two

**16.** **Godforsaken, Part Two**

"Michael! Michael!"

She was screaming, Amy was crying, and then there was the handle of Ike's shotgun against her head and blackness.

She lost thirty seconds, probably not much more. But in those thirty seconds, everything was stripped away from her. Everything but her memories. They clawed at her like horror movie killers or zombies, threatening to tear her apart. She grabbed at the one that floated to the top: a job they did with Sam about a year ago. They were undercover as aging punk druggies. The images flashed in her mind like photos: Michael's tight t-shirt. The Damned. The flush on his neck as she ogled him all night. Riding home in the Charger with the windows down. The lingering smell of gunpowder burned into the old upholstery. Sam ranking all the women in the bar as they laughed, hiding their little kids' play dress-up giddiness inside their veneers of deadpan savvy. Alone, his eyes on her in the blue-white glow of the streetlamp. His fingers hooked in her ripped fishnets. Sloppy, wet, beer-flavored, like-teenagers-again kisses. Life. Their fucked-up, dysfunctional, being bad and doing good life.

_She couldn't lose it. _

_Oh god, oh god, what would she do if she lost that?_

She woke up with Ike's hand clenched in her hair, dragging her away from Michael. He threw her against the metal edge of the bed and she barely felt the pain as her back struck it. Her body was not her biggest concern at the moment, so she let herself go limp and fall on the floor. Fi could feel the blood and bone and miscellaneous goo from Zoe's body, leaning against the bed next to her. Ike nudged her body with his foot, and she fell over, her arm falling across Fi's waist. Zoe made a thudding, slumping sound as she landed, like a bag of mud.

He was talking idly. Even for the thirty seconds of blackness, his voice had been staticky in her ears like a distant radio station. Now it was clear. "I was so tired of listening to that bitch's whining. God-_damn_. No one ever told her not to believe your own press." She placed his voice in the room: he was approaching Amy, who was apparently still stunned into complete silence in the corner. "Now it's just me and you little troublemakers. The bleeding bitch and the crying wittle church mowsey." He laughed as Amy let out a tiny whimper of complete fear. "I think I'm goin' to have to punish you again, darlin'," he drawled in an exaggerated Southern accent, and Amy started to scream.

Two words, over and over: please. No.

Fi opened her eyes, just enough. He was dragging Amy out the door. A couple times he let go and watched her lurch forward before he grabbed her again, squeezing her hips or her arms and plastering her body against his. Fiona kicked out with all her strength, made contact with Ike's right knee and heard a beautiful cracking sound. He fell to the ground, and she scrambled over him to shove at Amy. She was crawling and scrabbling like a feral animal, her nails scritching on the floor.

"Amy!" Fi grabbed her arms and shook her once. "Amy, you need to run outside. Don't look back, don't look to the left or the right, just run." She pulled the woman with her as she stood up, shoved her in front as they made it to the door. Someone grabbed Fi's ankle, tugged her down. She slammed down on her knees on the floor, and swore loudly. She twisted back and looked into Ike's face. She could see he was younger and stronger than he had seemed in his Stepford Pastor Husband guise.

"Still think you're going to win?" he grunted as he pulled. Fi wrapped her hands around the door frame. He picked up his shotgun, struggling to position the long barrel one-handed. She smiled back at him.

"I already have, fuckface." She meant to dislocate his jaw, but her momentum wasn't the best, kicking backwards. She ended up knocking out a few teeth, but it was enough to make him scream in anguish. She got to her feet and before she could grab Michael's gun and shoot Ike's face off, Amy started screaming again.

That wasn't unusual for the situation, obviously, but the smell of smoke was. Fi looked up the hall, to the entrance, and saw waves of smoke coming around the corner. "Goddamnit," she swore again. "Amy!"

She ran down the hall, focusing the shreds of her concentration of saving Amy. Fi crashed into her as she came around the corner. The main door of the shelter was in flames, and the fire was racing along the walls in both directions. Under the odor of burning wood, fabric, and paint, she smelled rotten eggs, which meant carbon disulfide as an accelerant. Probably wired the front door to ignite the fire when someone opened it. Fi looked back down the hallway in time to see Ike lurch out. She grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her into the nearest room.

Amy curled on the floor in front of the door, rocking. "No. No. No. Please. I-I-oh-"

Fi took in their surroundings. There was a lone pen on the desk. She jammed it in the lock, talking as sweetly to Amy as she could manage as she did it. "Amy, you need. To hold it. Together. I am going to get this window open, and you are going to get out and run away from this building as fast as you can without looking back. Just like before. Okay?" She shoved the window up as high as it could. Ike started pounding at the door. This one wasn't reinforced, just a crappy thrown-up one, and it started to break immediately. "I am going to save you if you fucking like it or not." Fi practically threw Amy out the window, slamming her previously-broken fingers into the wall as she did it and snapping one out of place again. "Run! Run!" she yelled as Amy sat in the dirt, looking like she just woke up on the moon. As a man.

Then the door fell in, and Fi closed the window and turned around.

"You have a lot of fight in you, Valerie. Your husband like that?" Ike spit blood on the floor and advanced toward her, pointing the gun at her chest.

"Did you think your stupid plan was actually going to work? It never occurred to you that one day someone would realize that you weren't Ike Krzewski. Like, whoever knew the real one?"

He grinned at her, moving around the room, forcing her to climb onto the bed. "The real Ike Krzewski was a fag who taught physical science for thirty years in some podunk town in the middle of nowhere before taking early retirement to jack off to muscle boy pictures online. No one cared about him. I set it up to look like he burned his own house for the insurance money, and the town was happy to get rid of him. Hell, if I went back there, they'd probably give me a medal. I knew this identity would be a good back-up plan if I ever got into a sweet situation like this. Leave it to a bitch like you to make it all go up in flames." He glanced toward the front of the building. "Literally."

"What was he, your fourth murder? Twelfth? Thirtieth?" She feinted toward him, then backed out the door and up the hallway. The only reason she was still alive was because he was enjoying this. He wanted to play with her. That was unsettling. She moved backwards, to the room she and Amy had just escaped. Their guns were there. If she could just-

"Uh-uh, when are you going to tell me about yourself, Valerie?" He licked his bloody lips with a bloodier tongue, looking like a prize fighter going into the last round. "I'm so curious."

"Pretty boring. Parents. Husband. Car. Clothes. Work."

"Social worker for drug addict mommies? It seems beneath you."

"Even drug addicts have people who care about them. Families."

Ike tilted his head back and laughed genuinely at this. Pure joy echoed in the hallway along with the crackle of heat from the flames destroying the building. "Oh, that's a good one. I really like you, baby, this mix of do-gooder and vigilante. Never met a girl quite like you before, I have to say. Hmm. No one cares about the women we helped," he continued, going back to the point at last. "Stupid sluts, trash. They made it easy for me. Not like you." His eyes lingered over her body again. "You would be an adventure. But you know the best part of everything I did?"

"The power," Fi muttered, feeling along the wall for the fifth doorway on the left, the one she'd been waiting for. It was right there, she told herself. The next step or the one after that. "Knowing you could do whatever you wanted, steal their children from them, and no one would believe ever them?"

"Yeah," his eyes went to her hand, and he raised the gun again. "That part was good, the power. But the best part? Was taking someone like Amy. So innocent and pure. The only guy she'd ever been with was her husband. Humiliating her, listening to her cry while I fucked her, and then making her _thank _me afterwards! She was so convinced we were doing it to help her!" He put his concerned face back on, his pillar of the community voice. "It was to restore the balance to her relationship with God. To be forgiven for her little sin, she had to atone, to repent, to _beg _God for his mercy. Her husband would never have known if you and _that _one hadn't shown up." He jerked the gun at Michael. "I thought it was suspicious, you two showing up when you did, but the way you looked at him?" He inched closer. She backed into the room. She could smell the blood; it coated the walls and the floor and the inside of her mouth, down to her throat and stomach.

Fi forced her limbs to relax, not to tighten and shake with adrenaline, and readied herself. "It seemed like you two were really in love." He smiled again, a cruel thin one. "Where are you going to bury him, have you thought about that?"

"Next to you," she muttered. She did not think about Michael. She would not.

"I wish I had a smaller gun. I'd love to fuck you," his eyes went to her tits again, "but not with your pretty face blown off. Ah, well. Maybe I'll be assigned to guard your sty in hell."

"And maybe I'll get to rape you with a blowtorch," she returned, and sprang up, kicking with everything she had at his face. They fell to the ground together, the gun slamming against her ribs and stealing her breath. She had the pen in her hand and before he could get the gun under her chin to blow her head off, it was sticking through his throat. He gasped for breath, tried to pull his head up, but the point was actually stuck in the floor, pinning him. Good old reliable Bic. He moved his mouth like a fish as she stood up and watched him.

_Die here. Die and burn_, he mouthed as his eyes began to dim. She waited for the light in them to go out completely, and then she bent and picked up her gun. She shot him in the head for good measure.

Then she turned to Michael. She couldn't imagine running or walking or crawling out of there without Michael. She wouldn't.

The silence in the room after the echoes of her gun shot faded made her guts roil. She closed her eyes, just for a second. Please, please, please, anything, I'll do anything, please. It was the same snatch of prayer- not even a prayer, a desperate plea- that she'd recited when she ran to the hospital to see her sister. She was too late then. She got on her knees next to him. She thought of Amy and she understood in that instant why she did everything she did- Olga, Harvey, everything.

The fire was coming up the hallway. The room was hot and sticky, and sweat dripped off her forehead. Her body was aching in a hundred different places. I will feel like this forever if you bring him back, she thought. Then she reached out her hand to touch him, so afraid.

She brushed his shoulder. It moved. His back rose and fell.

He was breathing.

He was alive, and she would always wonder if it was the prayer or maybe even her sister's intervention that had shocked Michael back at that moment, or if he'd been alive the whole time. She propped his head up against the desk and his lips twitched, which was a good sign. She ripped her shirt sleeve off and pressed it to his head. It looked like the bullet dug along the side, scraping a bloody path through skin and hair, but never penetrating the skull. His face was coated in blood, and she quickly tilted him onto his side. She whacked his back a couple times and he began to cough it up.

"Michael," she said loudly. She rolled him back and leaned over him, calling into his face as she kept the pressure on his head. "Wake up! Come on, Michael," she yelled. She pulled his eyelids up. Pupils normal and reactive. He swallowed, took a deeper breath.

"Fi?" he managed to choke out.

"Sit up," she said, dragging him to the wall as gently as she could. "We have about five minutes left, Michael. Come on, help me." They would have to go out the window, and now, before the whole building collapsed around them. She had lifted Amy, but Amy was her size, and not dead weight either. The window was over a meter off the ground, and she couldn't lift him that high without hurting him worse.

She could read the struggle on his face. He wiped a hand across his forehead and didn't seem surprised when it came back heavy with blood. He grasped her forearm with his hand and pulled hard. She levered her weight to lift him to a sitting position, then kept pulling until he bent his legs and tried to stand up. The wall took most of his weight, but he was up. He bent his body. His head and neck went out fine, but they ran into trouble at his chest. The hallway outside was going. She could hear the ceiling in other parts of the building collapse. Hell, every police, fire, and sheriff department in the county would be out there soon.

Somehow, they got him out, and he fell to the dirt with a muffled scream. Fi hopped out lightly and bent next to him again. "Almost there, Michael, we just have to get into the bushes." She heard a wailing that she thought was sirens and spied the baby lying under a bush, as loud as a fire truck and her little face as red as one.

"Kid," he said, holding out a hand. "Put the handle in my hand. And your arm," he held out his. She stuck the handle to the kid's carrier thing in Michael's fist, and he held onto it. She looped her arm over his shoulders, then waited while he did the same. His leg buckled on the first halting step. The drop from the window had made his wound reopen. In the light from the fire, she watched the makeshift bandage tied around it turn a bright, fresh shade of red.

"Want me to stop and fix it?" He blinked blood out of his eyes and slid his feet forward.

"That's a no?"

"Can't shake my head," he said, leaning over to spit out still more blood. She noticed he was trying to move his neck as little as possible too.

"Just lean on me," she told him, waiting until she felt more of his weight on her shoulders. "We're going to carry each other out of here. The three of us."

They made it a safe distance from the building, then around it to the front. As Fi had predicted, every uniformed state, city, or government employee in ten miles was running around in the parking lot. It was chaotic as hell, and she was pretty sure she even saw a mailman and a garbageman.

"Why- hate small towns," was the last thing Michael managed to say before they were enveloped in a wave of people.

**Author's Note: **(Non-smutty) action scenes are actually really hard for me, which is probably the kind of shortcoming an author shouldn't mention, but... well. This is how I roll. But the good news is that now the the evil ones have been dispatched, I have no more action to write. Except for the relationship-heavy smutty kind, of course. If anyone still likes that...?


	17. Motherless Child

**17. Motherless Child**

The first thing he heard was his mother's voice, saying something he couldn't make out wrapped around his name. Behind his closed lids, his eyes were gritty and thick; they had been closed for a long time, and he struggled inside the darkness, trying to place himself. He made himself slow his breathing, tried to remember what he heard before his mother.

The first thing: a different room, different sounds and smells. He could feel someone sewing up his head, the thread grinding through his skin, followed by the stab of the needle. It didn't hurt. He smelled his own blood and antiseptic creams. Then the sounds came back, strangers arguing over him in broken voices. It was like following a conversation in a bathtub, random words falling through the water.

"-him-question-"

"-for sure _what-_- tonight with a pregnant- drugged- her story- and Zoe did it-"

"And you belie- come on! - Zoe for years- involved in that! - them under arrest."

A handcuff closed around his wrist, the cold steel cutting into his bones as they attached the other end to the metal railing of the hospital bed. Fiona's hand, the only one as familiar to him as his own, wrapped around his other wrist, shielding him. "Like hell you will," came her voice, as close to him as her flesh. He began to struggle, to try to kick to the surface, and she put her other hand on his face. He felt her swollen fingers against the edge of his jaw, and her thumb stroked under his chin. The voices got dimmer and he sank back into the dark water.

After that, he remembered only the sensations of being moved from beds to stretchers and back again, riding in a car- an ambulance- somewhere, lights on his face.

He heard squeaking of shoes on the floor, a door opening and closing, and Sam's voice interrupting his mother's. Michael opened his mouth, coughed the dust of inactivity out of his throat. "Mom?" he rasped out. He opened his eyes a little, squinting against the light blazing in through the windows.

"Michael? Oh, thank God." His mother rushed to his side. She carefully enveloped him, in a cloud of love and nicotine. "Thank god you're okay."

"How are you feeling, buddy?" Sam moved closer, and Michael glanced at him over Maddie's shoulder. She let go and sat down on the edge of his bed, wiping her eyes.

"Like I got hit by a bus," he muttered. He pushed himself up on his elbows and glanced around the room. "How long have I been here?"

"Mikey, Mikey, take it easy."

"Honey, do not overexert yourself," Maddie tsked as she gently pushed him back down. "Do you even know what happened?"

"Yeah, Mom, I got shot-"

"In the head! _Shot in the head_, Michael. The doctors said that if your head had been turned a millimeter, _a millimeter_, in either direction, you would be dead now. _Dead_!" His mother was repeating herself. That was a very bad sign. Michael stared at the ceiling. "Do you know how lucky you are to be alive?"

"She's right," Sam put in as he raised the head of the bed. "The leg wound was bad enough, but getting shot in the head, that could have really fu- uh, messed you up. Turned you into a head of lettuce or worse. The doctor actually said it was a miracle that you're going to be okay."

Maddie nodded. "Those were his exact words. A _miracle_, Michael." They both stared at him expectantly.

"Huh." Michael studied the tube running into his arm.

"Well, thank god you lived long enough to contribute that bit of wisdom." Maddie threw up her hands. She paced to the window and back again, alternating between glaring at him and looking on the verge of tears again. Michael much preferred the former.

"I could do without hearing the word god for a while." There was a dull ache in his head, and he began to run his fingers over his forehead cautiously. A thick bandage started at his left temple and ran back to just behind his ear. When he pushed, he could feel the line of stitches beneath it. A thin line of bald scalp surrounded the bandage and he knew they had shaved the hair underneath it.

"Yeah, I bet." Sam took a packet of blueberry yogurt out of the grocery bag he was carrying and set it in a place of pride on the tray next to the bed. "That sounds like a hell of a job, Mikey."

"They were going to arrest us," he said. "When I was in the hospital there, after I-" he shook his head. "I hate drugs. I can't remember anything." He pushed the covers aside and peeled up the bandages there to look at his leg. "What happened?"

"I got there just after it all went down. They brought you to the hospital there, and there was a showdown between the police, the doctors, a bunch of people from the church, and the members of the gun club."

"The gun club?" Michael rolled his eyes.

"Yeah," Sam laughed. "You know the gun club in that town was made up of a bunch of big guys in hunting caps who didn't talk and some really old people? And every one of the guys ended up falling in love with Fiona? Two of the World War II vets almost got in a fistfight over who was going to walk her to the cafeteria."

Michael smiled a little as he pasted the bandage back down. "She told the police everything? About what happened with Amy, and that pregnant woman- Chloe?"

"Yeah, she and your friends filled them in. The police didn't want to buy it, but once everyone spilled their guts, they had to. So we got you transferred down here."

"Who is paying for this, by the way?" Michael looked over at his mother again.

"Are we completely over the fact that you were shot twice?" she replied furiously.

"I'll try not to let it happen again, believe me. Okay?" he asked after a moment of silence.

"I don't know why I'm even surprised. You always had a hard head," Maddie said, finally managing a smile. She held two fingers and an imaginary cigarette in front of her lips, an unconscious and nervous habit she was never able to break. "Your friends are even picking up the tab for your medical bills. Of course, considering they're the reason you got shot, it's really the least they could do, but still, it's a nice gesture."

"Yeah." Michael took a deep breath. Being halfway vertical again was making his head do long, dizzy spins. He set his jaw and swung his uninjured leg out of bed. He put his foot on the floor.

"Whoa, whoa, Michael, you're not going anywhere yet." Sam grabbed his arm and forced him down. He was stronger than he looked, or maybe Michael was more injured than he wanted to admit. "Just take it easy," he muttered, adding in a whisper, "Your mom's worried enough."

"Oh, you were worried too, Sam," she huffed. "We've been splitting shifts so you wouldn't be here by yourself. And speaking of which-" Sam stopped her with a Look, but when she returned a wicked glare of her own, he sighed and moved to the window. "Where is Fiona?"

Michael shrugged, leaning back against the bed. "How should I know?"

"What I mean is: what happened between the two of you there? Are things... okay?"

"Yeah, fine." Michael coughed a little. "Mom, can you get me a bottle of water?"

"Oh, that didn't work when you were seven and it's not going to work now. Stop trying to get rid of me. Are the two of you fighting?"

"I just got here. I haven't even talked to her for- how long have I been here again?" No one responded, and he looked around the room. "Sam. How long have I been here?"

"You were sick, Mikey, really si-" He sighed. "Three days."

"_Three days_?" He threw off the covers again. "You kept me in the hospital for three days?" Great, now he was repeating things like his mother.

"Yes, three days, Michael. You had a severe concussion. When they first brought you in, they thought you might have a traumatic brain injury! You can't just wake up from that and walk out of here!"

"Says who? I'm a very quick healer." He stood up again and took a tentative step away from the bed, hissing when pain radiated up his leg and his head throbbed like Fi had wired a bomb inside it. He looked down, then behind him. "I just need some actual clothes. Sam, can you-" He looked up again, and his friend was disappearing out the open door to his room. "Sam!"

A nurse stuck his head in the room and gaped at Michael. "Oh, no, no, no. No." He shook his head. "Sir, it is way too early for you to be up and around. When did he regain consciousness?" he asked Maddie.

"Just a few minutes ago. I told him it was too soon to move around, but he's always been very stubborn."

"Mr. St. Clare, you suffered two serious gunshot wounds. You have another head CT scheduled for this afternoon."

Between the two of them, they got Michael back in bed again. "I'm going to give you something to help with the pain," the nurse said, and before Michael could object, the man hit the button for the morphine. "There you go. Now the doctor will be around in a few hours to talk to you about physical therapy for your leg."

Michael laid back and closed his eyes, pointedly ignoring the conversation about PT going on between his mother and the nurse. He would have been happier being trapped in a cave in Afghanistan or a Russian prison instead of an American hospital; if nothing else, he knew he wouldn't run into his mother in either location. Corrupt opium-addicted cops and sadistic gang-raping prison guards he could handle. Guilt trips and tears were harder to shoot. And the drugs. He didn't enjoy pain, but it was infinitely preferable to a fuzzy mind and a slowed-down, out-of-his-control body. He forced himself to take a deep breath. This place had air-conditioning, if nothing else. He could stand it. For a few more hours, anyway.

He heard Sam sidle up next to the bed. "Traitor," he muttered, low enough so his mother couldn't overhear.

"Mike, there are some things a friend can't get involved in, and what goes on between a man and his mother is one of them. Besides, I brought you yogurt." He moved the tray in front of Michael and put down a plastic spoon. "Now eat up. The sooner you get your strength back, the sooner they'll let you leave."

Michael grudgingly opened a container. "And why the hell are they calling me Mr. St. Clare?"

"When you and Fiona went to the hospital in Mornington, she told them you were working undercover to track down the baby Ike and Zoe had stolen from one of the cult members. She thought it would be better if Michael Westen stayed off the radar, so she told them your name was Marmaduke St. Clare." Michael choked on his yogurt and Sam bit back a laugh. "Apparently she had some ID made up for you in that name. Saving it for a rainy day, I guess."

"It was very sweet of her," Maddie put in, watching Michael's face closely. Maddie had met the ambulance at the hospital, and when Sam climbed out, followed by Fiona, and Michael on the gurney, she had been struck by how pale and worried both of them looked. It had scared her almost more than the sight of the bandage on Michael's head. Almost immediately, they wanted to take Michael upstairs for tests.

Fiona unclasped her fingers from his hand. She had been holding him so tightly her knuckles were white, but when she let go, he reached up, like he was searching for her fingers again. Fi had bent down, touched her cheek to his. "I have to go now," she had whispered softly. "I'll be back later." She ran out as soon as they loaded Michael into the elevator, not even staying to answer the doctor's questions, and one of the nurses muttered to another, "Some friend," but Maddie knew, without being told, that Fiona had saved her son's life. She had taken care of him, like Maddie had asked her to.

"I have to admit, it is a little strange," Sam was saying when Maddie tuned back in. "Normally Fi would be down here rubbing it in that she saved your ass. You know that's right up there with exploding cars on her list of favorite things to do."

Michael responded by coughing again. "Is it bright in here or is it just me?" He put down the spoon and shielded his eyes with one hand, working up a little moan.

"I am not leaving the room so you can sneak out," Maddie said, settling herself down in a chair at his bedside and picking up a Reader's Digest. "So you can just forget it."

Michael stared at her, then returned to his yogurt. He would wait her out. That was all. It had worked on drug lords, gun runners, sociopathic murderers, and mad bombers. Eventually it would work on Madeline Westen too.

It took almost two days, for which he grudglingly gave his mother credit. Of course, he amended as he hobbled down the hospital corridor at two am, it helped that his mom kept upping his pain meds every time he tried to get rid of her. He passed most of the time in a woozy daze, and he thought he may even have agreed to drive her and her friends down to the Everglades to go bird-watching.

Michael snuck out of the emergency room doors behind a huge black guy carrying a screaming little girl, and Sam was waiting in the Charger- his car!- at the entrance. "I hate hospitals," he growled as he climbed in. "They smell like disinfectant and shit and death. Why did you let her keep me there?"

"Mike, you have stitches and staples and a bucket of drugs inside you, and the only reason I'm taking you home is because you promised- you swore a blood oath to me- that you are going to lie in bed." Sam slammed his hand down on the wheel to emphasize this point. "No working out, no jumping off buildings, and definitely no taking on jobs! If I spring you and then you rip yourself open and start losing body parts all over Miami, your mom will kill me! And," he added, glancing at Michael, who was wearing a pair of blue scrubs Sam had 'liberated' from a supply closet, "you look like hell."

"Gee, thanks," he said as they pulled up to his loft. He'd never been so happy to see home again. The thought made him pause. When had this place, beat-up and tattered and completely suited to him, become home?

"Need any help getting up the stairs?"

Michael looked at him.

"Okay, just asking."

"I'll call you tomorrow," he said as he climbed out of the car.

"Oh, I'm going to be coming by to check on you, and your mom will too, so you better be here."

Michael grimaced quietly as he stood. He took the new glad-you're-not-dead pack of yogurt Sam'd brought him and nodded. "Yeah, I will. Thanks," he said again, as he waved his friend off.

As soon as the door closed, he pulled off the clothes that stank of the hospital. The room was dark but the lights from the streets and the sound from the club reverberating the walls reminded him how far away he was from the creepy quiet of nights in small towns and hospitals. _Falling asleep to hip-hop music again_, he thought, as he collapsed gratefully and gingerly onto his familiar bed.

He lay in the dark for a good five minutes, trying to pinpoint what was bothering him. He finally realized the sheets smelled like his cheap laundromat. He'd gotten used to the mingled scents of Fi's shampoo and lotion and that expensive flowery fabric softener she used. He shoved a pillow under his leg and settled on his back. It was another half hour before he finally fell asleep.

He woke up dull-headed and vaguely nauseous, but sleeping too much always did that to him. His biological clock said it was around six. He showered and dressed, unable to keep a grin off his face when he finished. He finally felt like himself again. He tested himself by walking quickly around the loft, and when he managed to keep a decent pace- hobbling, but decent- he dropped down and started doing push-ups, bracing his feet against the kitchen counter.

After 100, he heard a knock and then the door swung open. He looked up, his chin a couple inches from the floor. He expected to see his mother and/or Sam, arriving to lurk and/or hover over him. Instead, it was Fiona.

She was wearing what he thought of as a classic Fiona outfit: knee-high black boots, shorts that managed to be covered with a million pockets, and a t-shirt with the collar ripped out. She closed the door and leaned one hand against it, the other going to her hip. Posing. "Glad to see me?"

He realized he was smiling at her. He dropped to the floor, quickly rolled over, and sat up. "You're here early."

"I'm surprised it took you this long to break out of the hospital, Michael. You must be losing your touch." She was sauntering again, that loose-hipped Fiona stride, randomly touching things around his apartment and watching him out of the corner of her eye. He sank, carefully, into a chair and propped his foot on the counter, wincing at the burn in his leg.

"They drugged me," he retorted, folding his arms. "Made me realize how bad it must have been for those women."

"Speaking of," she turned to face him, dangling her car keys in her hand, "want to go for a ride?"

It was like how the whole op got started, the two of them in her car, Fi close-mouthed about where they were going. "Alexander and Medb wanted us to do them one last favor," she said as she darted between minivans and 18-wheelers on the highway. "It took a while. For everything to work out with Amy and her husband and Hannah. No one was sure what to do with her, I guess, but Alexander and Medb are taking custody of her today. They wanted us to be there."

"What happened to Amy?" he asked, looking out at the ocean. How smooth and clean and calm the water seemed, in comparison with the mess they made of the earth.

"Sent her to jail. For helping to hold the women hostage, and drugging them." She paused, glanced over at him. "They found Gavin's mother. Her body."

"Fuck."

"Ike had dumped her in a lake a few miles outside of town. He shot her."

"I'm sorry I left you with all the aftermath to deal with, Fi."

It was the first time he had said her name, and she looked at him again and smiled. "You got shot, Michael. If there's a choice between that and getting interrogated by the police, I'll take the cops. They're nicer to me than they would be to you, anyway."

"I heard you were the belle of the gun club. You going back there to see your admirers?"

"Maybe," she shrugged. He watched the movement of her shoulders and her clavicle, sharp bones under golden-brown skin. "I got kind of fond of Dolores. She- she's a funny kid. Sweet."

He could tell she was planning to say something else. Her hands gripped harder on the wheel when she shifted topics, but he let it lie. "This seems familiar," he said as they pulled up in front of the Riordan-Wainwright Arms again.

She nodded as she cut the engine. "Amy's husband is bringing Hannah up here." It hit him as they got out that this was the first time they had walked together outside in days without him taking her hand, swinging it between their legs and feeling the pulse in her narrow wrist pick up as he did it. She was walking in front of him, but when she noticed him stopping, she checked her pace, so they walked into the hotel together.

Sometimes doing good doesn't feel good. That's a fact they don't use in the government recruitment videos, but it's one that certain government employees, like spies, learn quick. Sometimes, most times, in fact, what you're doing is bigger than one person. _Purpose, not people_, one of Michael's early handlers had told him, and what he liked most about what he did in Miami was that the person was the purpose. He helped people and he got to see the results in a way he never did when he was infiltrating rogue governments to save the world. Even when he couldn't fix everything, couldn't bring someone who was killed back for the client, he could get them justice or peace or safety. He could get rid of the bad guy.

But sometimes the bad guy you got wasn't the real bad guy. Michael read Amy's husband, Chris, in one look: a hard worker, with a tired face and a receding hairline. Solidly built, probably played catcher on the local baseball team or went bowling with his trucker buddies. Broken. He was sitting with Hannah in his lap. She was chewing on some multi-colored plastic thing, waving it in one arm and tilting her head back to look at her father. He nodded at Michael and Fiona when they came into the functional, cold meeting room on the first floor of the hotel. Alexander and Medb weren't there; they had sent a nanny, a severe-looking older woman with a harsh Russian accent. She stood outside the room in the hallway, holding a stroller and waiting. When Chris saw her, he swallowed hard and looked down at Hannah. They sat across from him at the long conference table.

"Hi," he said, and Michael introduced himself and her, keeping it to first names. Chris and Fi nodded at each other. "I'm not gonna make any excuses for what Amy did. I wanted to meet you so you could tell- her name was Olga?" When they nodded, he continued. "So you can tell Olga's family that. I wanted to tell them myself, but I guess they don't much want to meet me." He looked down at the baby, bounced her on his leg, and she squealed happily.

"You had no idea what Ike and Zoe were doing at the shelter?" Michael asked, though Fiona had told him in the lobby that Amy had stood firm on that when the police questioned her.

Chris looked away. "I- I knew about the adoption, but I never met the girl." He looked at the nanny in the hallway again. "I thought it was strange when Amy faked being pregnant. Everybody's adopting nowadays it seems like, the famous people anyway, but she didn't want people to know it wasn't her baby because they would treat her different. But she promised me it was all on the up and up. She showed me the papers with the judge's signature and everything. I don't know why Amy went along with it, she won't talk to me anymore about it. She tried to-to hurt herself in jail." He swallowed hard, struggling to keep his eyes on Michael's. "She's a good person. I know, at heart she's a real good person. And I wouldn't have let her do it if I'd known." Michael looked in his eyes and believed him. "I wouldn't have done it."

He stood up and leaned across the table then, and Fi reached out and took the baby, moving her back and forth when she began to cry. Chris got flustered and bent down so he wouldn't have to watch. "I brought things. I know they'll have their own things, but I thought, things she knows, they might help. Clothes and a blanket she sleeps with at night." He put a bag on the table, opened it up to show them. The clothes were neatly folded into tiny pink, yellow, brown, and white shapes. The last duties of a father who was losing his only child. He picked up a large box with a picture of a smiling baby on the front. "The mobile's in here. We had it over her crib. She really loves it, can't sleep at night without listening to it a few times. It plays You Are My Sunshine. That- tell them that's her favorite song. Anyway." He shuffled his feet, reached out a hand and touched the tip of Hannah's nose. "Bye, baby girl." He showed her his palm as he moved his hand away and she waved her hand back and forth, like someone had taught her to do once, watching her daddy leave their house from the window. _Wave bye-bye to Daddy. Oh, Hannah, show Mommy how you wave bye-bye._

Michael shook his hand because there was nothing else to do, and Chris looked at him so he wouldn't have to watch Fiona carry Hannah into the hallway. The Russian nanny, Raisa was her name, put the baby in the fancy, expensive stroller. She rolled her up to the elevator as Michael and Fiona followed. Alexander and Medb were staying in the penthouse.

A strange woman opened the door, holding the hand of a dark-haired little boy in a British private school uniform. When he saw Michael and Fiona, he hid behind the woman's hip. "Joseph, what kind of way to behave is that?" Raisa scolded as she wheeled the stroller inside. "This is Michael and this is Fiona, and they're the people who brought you your new cousin. Say hello." She sat down on the couch in the living area and pulled the stroller closer. She lifted Hannah out and began to remove the little dress she was wearing.

Joseph knelt on the floor in front of her. He kept glancing back at Michael and Fiona. "Hello," he said at last, his accent posh and British. "I'm here on holiday. What happened to your head? It looks ugly," he asked, staring at Michael's face.

"Joseph!"

He turned back to Raisa and the baby. "What is her name?"

Raisa was redressing the baby in something white and fluffy, and didn't respond.

"The people she was with called her Hannah," Fi volunteered.

"Oh, I like that," Joseph replied, tickling the bottom of the baby's foot. "My cousin Hannah. More like a sister, isn't she, Raisa?"

"She's your cousin," Raisa told him firmly in Russian. "Where are your mother and father?"

"Here we are," Medb announced as she breezed into the room. "Fiona, Michael, hello." She shook their hands warmly. "We simply cannot thank you enough for taking care of everything so wonderfully and expediently. Michael, I hope you are recovering from what happened." She glanced at the wound on his head. It was pretty hideous. "It's not too serious, I hope?"

"No, it's nothing."

"That's a relief to hear. Would you like to join us for some tea? Alexander, Michael and Fiona are here," she called into the other room. "He's going over some business details. We're flying back to London tonight." She looked back at Raisa and the baby for the first time. "Now that the custody details have been worked out."

"Oh," Michael said, holding out the mobile box for her to take, "her- the people who were taking care of her sent some stuff."

"A mobile," Fi filled in. "And some clothes." She held out the bag as Medb blinked at them. "He was sorry for what happened. He said he didn't know what his wife and the Krzewskis were doing to Olga."

Alexander snorted. He was standing in the middle of the room, his dark eyes fixed on Raisa and Hannah. "What else would he say now?"

"He wanted you to have them because he thought it would make it easier for her to adjust," Michael said, putting the box on the ground when Medb didn't move to take it.

"They called her Hannah," Joseph told his father, looking from him to the baby. "My cousin Hannah."

Medb watched as her husband approached the baby gingerly, studying her face. Looking for some sign of his sister in the chubby cheeks and pouting mouth. "Antonina," he said at last. "Nina." He looked at Medb and smiled. "More suited to her than Hannah."

Medb smiled with closed lips. "Antonina," she nodded, glancing at the baby again.

They had tea with Medb and Alexander. Raisa and the other woman took Antonina/Hannah and Joseph into the next room, and they talked about the details of what had happened. The other pregnant woman, Chloe, had been released from the hospital. She had gone back to her mom in Daytona Beach, and was planning to keep her baby. Alexander was especially pleased that both Ike and Zoe had been killed. He had found out from the sheriff's office in Mornington that Ike's real name was Steven Jones, and he was wanted for murder, rape, and drug charges in three states.

"We feel that what you did was truly a public service. Not only justice for my sister, but for all the other people that he victimized, and his future victims. We want to offer you a bonus in the same amount as your original fee," Alexander told them. "For a job, very, very well done."

Michael looked at Fiona. She was studying the flowers painted on the delicate, expensive tea cup. She had the bag of baby clothes next to her seat. "No," he said, looking back to Alexander. "Our original fee will be fine."

"I don't feel like I thought I would," Fiona blurted out after ten minutes of driving in silence. "What's going to happen to Hannah- Nina? I know they'll take care of her, but- Chris and Amy, they loved her. She was everything to them." Michael didn't respond. "Did we do the right thing?"

"We did what we had to do, Fi. We couldn't let things go on the way they were. The kid, whatever her name is, she's going to be fine. At least she won't have to worry about Ike or Zoe hurting her one day."

"Yeah," Fi said finally. "Yeah. Right." But even when she reached his loft, they sat for a few minutes in silence. "Hey," she poked him, pointing at his door. "Your mom came by and left something."

"Oh, Christ," he muttered as he climbed out of the car.

"No more religious talk. Ever," she mock-shrieked, her boot heels clicking on the metal stairs as they climbed up to his door. Michael picked up the paper bag as Fi's cell phone began ringing. She shoved her purse into his arms too.

"Yeah, give everything to the guy with a gunshot wounds."

"Hey!" Fi beamed into the phone. "How are things? Mmm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, wait, he's here." She thrust the cell phone at Michael. "It's Gavin, talk to him."

"Hello? Hey, Michael, you know this phone shows up under Marmaduke St. Clair on caller ID?"

"Really." He looked over at Fi, who was going through his mother's care package. "Marmaduke St. Clair?"

"This is trail mix," she called back gleefully.

"Yeah, it's a long story, I guess." He touched his head again, picking at his stitches with a wince. "I'm sorry about your mom, Gavin. If I'd known she was in that kind of danger from Ike and Zoe-"

"I know," he said quietly. "And I wanted to-to thank you. You made me see the truth about those people, and that made me see the truth about my mom."

Michael paused. "What did Fi tell you?"

"She said that Ike told her he basically blackmailed my mom into helping him. Once she found out he was giving drugs to the women in the program and she didn't go to the police, he could have turned her in for violating her probation. I would have gotten sent back to foster care. That's how he got her to help him do that stuff to Olga. And when he tried to do sell Chloe's baby, my mom couldn't go through with it." He sounded proud of her, and Michael smiled at the spirit in his voice. "So anyway, that's why I wanted to talk to you. And to make sure you're okay, last time I saw you you, uh, didn't look so good."

"Don't worry about me, okay? I'm fine. What about you? Where are you?"

"Valerie- I mean, Fi- she found out that my dad had a sister in Birmingham. She took me over to meet her." Michael heard a door closing on the other end. "She's not rich or anything, but she's okay. Not a loser like my dad. She said she'd have taken me the first time I went into foster care if she'd known about it."

"Good. That's... really good, Gavin."

"I already told Fi thank you, but will you tell her again, Michael? She's the best. She drove me over here and she got Carol in touch with this pro bono lawyer who's going to draw up guardianship papers and stuff."

"Yeah," Michael said, watching Fi shove a big covered pot, muttering under breath about 'some fleshy _thing_,' in his fridge. "I'll tell her."

Gavin was silent for a minute. "When we were talking that night, when you came to the church? I was thinking about that. About how- I don't know, I always felt like, why couldn't she stop doing drugs? Why did she have to ruin _everything_, my life and her life? But when Fi told me that stuff about my mom, I realized she did everything in Mornington for me. To try and make me happy, give me the life she thought I wanted. And I'm glad that when she-when she died, she thought that, I mean, I hope she knew that I was happy. With her. And everything. You know?"

"Yeah, I know. And I think she knew too."

"Anyway," he coughed. "I'll let you get some rest, head wound and all."

"Let me know if there's ever anything we can do for you, Gavin. I mean it, anything."

"I will. Bye, Michael. Tell Valerie-Fi bye too."

"So," he turned the phone over in his hand. "How much of that story about Gavin's mom did Ike actually tell you?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and swallowed a mouthful of trail mix. "Ike said she didn't like what they were doing, so I inferred."

"Sounds like you inferred a nice little story for him."

"He's a good kid. I wanted to give him a happy ending. Well," she amended. "As happy as we could under the circumstances." She perched on the kitchen counter while he sat on his bed. "Your mom called me yesterday. She thinks we're having a fight."

He folded his arms behind his head, stretching his legs out. "Are we?"

"No. I mean, I don't want to." She picked at the hem of her shorts, suddenly looking almost self-conscious. "It was weird, wasn't it? Pretending to be married?"

"No stranger than other things we've done," he countered. "It was weird sleeping without you last night." Michael felt like he literally heard the words fall out of his mouth and hit the floor with a deafening thud. Fi looked at him with wide, startled eyes. "I got used to it," he said defensively. "Listening to you kick the blankets around and talk in your sleep. It's too quiet here without it."

She narrowed her eyes, a smirk darting around her lips. "I got used to you leaving the toilet lid up and your running shoes in the middle of the floor."

"Guess we know each other too well."

She slid off the cabinet slowly, watching him watch her. "I always said you spoiled me, Michael."

**Author's Note: **I know I promised smut, and smut there shall be, but I realized I had all these freaking storylines to resolve first! Plus, I missed writing Maddie and Sam. I hope the case resolution worked for everyone. I know it's slightly darker than it would be on the show. (Or I think so, anyway.) And don't worry, I AM going to post the last chapter before the new episodes start. (Squee! New episodes!) I really, really loved writing this story for you guys. I hope you had a tenth as much fun as I did.


	18. Carry Each Other

**Chapter 18. Carry Each Other**

"I always said you spoil me, Michael," she told him, her low voice making his own throat go tight. Had it only been a few days since the last time he touched her, really touched her? He would have sworn that if he closed his eyes- as if he _could _close his eyes while she was staring at him like that- he would still be able to taste her. And feel her on his fingers, under them, around them.

"When have you ever said that?" he asked.

She gave a sigh of mock-annoyance. "Remember when we first came to Miami? I got drunk watching you watch all your FBI tails pretend to enjoy themselves?" She raised her knee up to her chest, unzipped her boot, and pulled it off. She put the boot on the counter, facing the bed, then repeated the process. "I was dating some guy at a bank then, and I told you he had no tactical sense, no appreciation for a fine piece of weaponry," she continued as she adjusted her shoes, enjoying the feel of them, the soft leather warmed by her skin and the sun.

"You always think I don't remember these things," he cut her off, his voice intruding on her thoughts. Turning them warmer, softer. "Didn't I tell you you would be surprised by what I remembered?"

Now he was thinking back to that night. On the stairs outside this loft, she fell into him like the humid closeness of the air. She never held back and that killed him. All he could do was take her in, like the air. Suck her down. Fi reached up to tug at her shirt sleeve where it was sticking to her shoulder, and he caught a glimpse of her stomach. Tan. He knew from experience she was tan everywhere, and still, every time he saw her, his hands itched to double-check that fact. He wanted to reach for her. He wanted to work the fabric off every inch of her skin, slowly.

She smoothed her hair down her back, trying not to tremble at the look in his eyes. She knew that look. She knew what would come next, if she let it. If she let it. That was the thing about Michael; here, he knew cues. Here, he was generous. Even _sensitive_. But still, did she ever really have a choice? From the first time she saw him, that smile, those arms, the guts and the heart inside him, wasn't she done for at that moment? He was smiling like he could read her mind. She tried to center herself, to pull herself back down to earth and away from the sun that always burned her. But she was throbbing between her legs. A step away from aching. A few minutes away from crawling on top of him to get another hit of Michael into her body.

She wasn't sure what her face looked like while she thought about that. He was looking at her with a keen-edged, searching type of patience. "What?" she asked, moving her hand over her body and half-afraid to hear what he would say.

Michael laid his arms flat on the bed, his palms up. "Come here, Fi. Please."

"I can't," she whispered, planting her feet on the floor until her toes ached. "I can't go to you again, Michael." She turned to face him in profile and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Okay," he said easily. She didn't watch him walk to her, but when he reached out and cautiously put a hand on her arm, she launched herself at him. She leapt into his arms and Michael caught her easily, even with his injured leg. Her head tucked perfectly under his chin. He enfolded her, stunned again at how small she felt inside his arms. All that heat and power packed inside such a soft, sweet-smelling package. It was amazing she hadn't killed more people than she had, thinking about it like that. Her head tucked perfectly under his chin, and he breathed in the smell of her hair. The smell he missed so much on his sheets, he didn't know if he'd ever be able to sleep again without it. Fi turned her head into his chest, murmuring, "Michael," under her breath, and she seemed so young all of a sudden, he took a deep breath.

"I wish-" he said, and she froze. "I wish things could be different."

She pulled back, regarding him cautiously. "What do you mean?"

"I wish I could give you what you want."

"What do you think I want?"

He laughed a little, a bitter, hollow sound in the room. "More than I could give you. And I don't," he continued over her objection, "want you to give me so much that you regret it later."

"Michael," she took a step back, keeping her hands curled around his arms. Sometimes she wanted to grab him and just shake him until his head came off. "I gave you- I give you things because _I want to_. I don't want some kind of shmoopy, lovey, baby doll thing, you know."

"Shmoopy?" Even though he felt this wouldn't end well for him, he had to laugh.

She shoved his shoulder. "You know what I mean." Fi was staring fixedly at a spot in the middle of his chest. "Why don't you think you're enough for me?"

"I've never been enough for anyone." He blinked when he heard himself say it. "Even when I was a kid. What do I have, Fi?" He moved away from her. "Nothing. Why do you think that is? Why do you think you're the only person, the only person I've ever been this close to? That I've let get inside me? The only one I would give up everything for?"

His voice was as sad as she had ever heard it, and there was a resigned look in his eyes. He really believed that when she saw him as he saw himself, she would leave. She let herself lean into him again, rub her hand along the back of his neck. He closed his eyes and bent his head closer to her. "Because I'm _me_, Michael. We don't have to worry about why it didn't happen with other people. I like us. I need what we are to each other. I need this to keep going," she said, fisting her hand in his shirt. She wanted to tell him more. Tell him that she saw the decency in him, the goodness that his father and Larry and Management and Carla and Simon and a thousand people like them could never stamp out. But then he leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes still closed tight, and the tension went out of him.

"I know. I need it too." She kissed the corner of his mouth, softly, and then he was on her. Greedy and fierce, he put everything he couldn't say into his mouth, his tongue and his teeth, his hands and his body.

Fi poured herself back into him in response, wrapping her legs around his waist. As dangerous as it was, here she was again, holding nothing back from him. _For better or worse, Michael. As close as we can get._"Closer," he muttered as he lowered her onto the bed, and she sucked in air in surprise. "Closer to you," he said, pulling her shirt up and off. He molded her body to his, sliding his hand lower down her back. The muscles in his chest rubbed against her breasts, and he lowered his head, his breath getting closer and closer, and then-

He rolled her over and laid down on his back, grabbing the one stingy pillow on his bed and putting it between them.

"Sorry," he said, folding his arms behind his head. "But are you sure we're ready?"

She narrowed her eyes and went to grab the pillow. He pulled her on top of him, digging his fingers into her side to make her laugh. She squirmed and howled and finally pinned his arms to the mattress, back above his head. "Don't make me hurt you when you're all stitched up like that," she warned. He grinned at her, looking so young and beautiful in that instant that she stopped breathing.

"What?" he asked, trying to read her face again.

"You're beautiful," she told him earnestly, tilting her head.

He flushed, redness creeping up his neck. "You must not know what I'm looking at," Michael told her, scanning his eyes over her. From her hair, tangled from the fight and curling in the damp heat of the loft, to her clean bare feet, she was perfect. And in the middle- well, that might be his favorite part. "You're the most amazing person I've ever known."

She was smirking but did not object. Then she began to torture him. She raised her hands above her head, smoothing her hair back again. Her breasts swayed and her dusky pink nipples curved up to the ceiling, and every drop of blood left his upper body. He felt tuned to her, like he had been made for her, for this, not the wars and the wandering. The beauty instead of the hate and rage. Fi held his eyes, and he could tell by the gleam in hers that she was pleased by what she saw. She touched his cheek. "Are you going to let me give you something?"

"Yes," he exhaled. She beamed at him. She was careful to keep her weight resting on her heels and away from his injured leg as she straddled him. Carefully she worked her shorts off, and when she was done, she pressed her center against his, letting her thighs squeeze his. She knew he could feel her heat and wetness through his jeans, just like she could feel how hard he was

"You were walking around with me the whole day with no underwear on?" he said in a strangled voice. "Holy fuck, Fiona." She felt his gaze wrap around her like a physical touch, and when he circled her wrist with his hands, one sliding up her ribcage and the other down her hip, she let him. Glorying in it. For a minute.

"Can _I _give _you _something, remember?" she laughed, pushing his hands back down to the mattress. She licked the vein in his wrist as she did it. "Don't worry. I'm really good at this," she said as she bit the heel of his palm, her lip scraping wetly against his skin as she moved her hips up to his stomach, painting his skin with her desire for him. He groaned in protest, and she realized how uncomfortable a certain part of him must be.

Fi pursed her lips and made quick work of his clothes, letting out these unbelievably sexy _Mmm _sighs as she did it. When they were both naked, she started at his collarbone and began to work his way down. He watched her head move from side to side, nibbling, sucking, soothing and teasing, and struggled to resist the urge to flip her over and bury himself inside her until he couldn't remember anything or anyone else.

"You gave me so much last time, Michael," she murmured against his sternum, and he couldn't stop looking down her body: the combination of strength and fragility, the pull of her muscles and the siren song of her curves. The fire in her eyes when she looked up to meet his. "It was so good for me." She rubbed her lips against his stomach and he had to grip the sheet in his fists to keep from touching her. "Do you know," she began, stopping for a minute to lick down the light trail of hair, not stopping until she reached the base of his cock. He groaned, moving his hand from the sheet to her hair. "Do you know," she continued, her voice so joyous, "the first time I wanted you?" She found a bruise on his thigh, and she kissed it tenderly. "You were sitting in the pub, talking to some contact, and you had your hands wrapped around a pint, and all I could think was how powerful those hands were. How much I wanted them on me. How good you looked." She kissed the bandage on his leg now, ran her hand over it lightly. "What it would be like," she moved up his body again, dragging her sweet-sheened flesh against his, "to have your body under me. Or over me," she laughed. "Inside me and around me, Michael-"

Then his lips were on hers again, and her neck, her cheeks, her shoulders, her breasts, wherever he could reach. "God, Fiona-"

"What surprised me," she said, struggling for casual but betrayed again by the huskiness in her voice, "when we were finally together, was how good it was. How much you loved to touch me and t-taste-" She buried her face in the mattress as he found her breasts and sucked hard, running his hands over every inch of her. "I love tasting you, Michael, swallowing you whole," she managed to get out, and even his decades of complete control of his every movement couldn't keep him from jerking against her. His cock brushed her center, leaving a trail of wetness up her thigh, and she had to fight a corresponding jolt in her own hips. She was shaking now. She slid her hand between their bodies, surprising him when she reached between her own legs. He let go of her breasts with light kisses to her puckered nipples, and settled back on the pillow to study her face. She had her eyes closed, her teeth working over her bottom lip. He pushed two fingers through her wet folds and into her slick center, and her eyes opened, pupils wide. He almost swallowed his tongue at the look in them.

"Michael-ah-" Her hips rotated hard once, twice, and she dripped onto his fingers. Abruptly, she reached down and clasped his shaft at the base, rubbing her sticky wetness into his velvety smooth skin, tracing the veins. Part of her wanted to lick him up like she had been about to that last day in Mornington, but before she could make up her mind, he pulled her onto him.

She took him in. Just an inch. Slowly.

She was so unbearably tender, he looked down because he wanted to watch her open bit by bit as he entered her. She was moving over him, her legs and throat and everything in between quivering and flushing. He told himself to remember, _always remember how fucking lucky you are_, and then her lips were next to his ear. "You don't have to say it," she whispered as she took him in. Fully. "I want you to know. I do love you."

She rose and fell, their bodies slamming together and the room filled with that sound, and the bed creaking, and their ragged, gasping breaths, and it was the soundtrack to desperation. She clasped his head tightly as she tasted his mouth again, their tongues twisting around each other just like their bodies were. Like the first time she said it, she couldn't stop talking, moaning her desires into his mouth, her words beautiful and obscene and broken around their kisses. "Deeper, deep as you- oh, yes. I feel you." Her head bent forward weakly, her neck going limp. She rocked, rocked her hips against him. She felt perfect in his arms, his skin heating every time she touched him, promising an air-engulfing, dangerous explosion. He reached down and fingered her gently, and she screamed when the explosion arrived, her hands clenched on his shoulders hard enough to bruise. She rested her forehead against his again as he touched her, slowly and carefully, pumping his hips to draw out the pleasure for her as long as he could. She didn't know how either of them survived, but she could still feel him inside her. He thickened, ready to go off. She opened her eyes and they watched each other as she rode them to the edge.

Their hearts were racing so fast he couldn't tell them apart, but he could feel hers, around him and somehow inside him. He had to say it, Michael knew he had to say it now or he never would. He prayed his heart wouldn't explode out of his chest before he could. "I love you," he said through numb lips. His world shrank down to the feeling of everything inside him shooting into her, and Fi's softness against him like a long, hopeful caress.

The next thing she registered was his arm across her stomach as she laid next to him on their back. His hand was gently pulling through her hair, again and again, and their legs were tangled together. Their breathing was almost worryingly loud and irregular. "I love you," he said again.

They stayed like that for a long moment, Michael worrying she wasn't going to respond, and Fi committing every detail of the moment to memory, to be recalled at many, many later dates. "I heard you the first time," she finally said softly, sitting up and pressing a kiss to his top lip. Then the bottom.

She put her head on his chest and smiled against his skin. He had his arms wrapped around her, stroking the velvety afterglow sex left on her skin, and he couldn't imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else. One day, he figured, he probably would, but no potential situation would come to mind.

"I can't promise-" he stopped when she glanced up at him, her eyebrows raised. "I don't know what's going to happen. But I know that I need you. I know that everything that has happened to me was worth this."

Her eyes went bright and he was afraid she might cry, but she kissed him instead, scratching her nails back and forth on his chest. He thought the should wonder why even that made her want him again, but somehow, it made sense. She sat up and looked at the wound on his head and he ran his finger under her breasts. Goosebumps rose up and her nipples hardened again, but she ignored him. He wasn't ready for a second round anyway, but she was all loose and delectable, practically edible in her ripe, blooming beauty. He found her hand, tracing her broken and re-set fingers. The finger she had worn his ring on. She turned hers so he could clasp it, palm to palm.

"We're going to carry each other," she said when she pulled away, remembering the moments she struggled out of the burning building with him.

He nodded, curving his lips in an utterly satisfied smile. "Yeah. I think we are."

"We should order in," she said after a long silence where they sat and stared at each other and smiled, "because I don't want to eat your mother's meat thing.

He snorted. "I say we give it to the feral cats in the parking lot and see if they'll touch it."

"Want to stay here for a while first?"

"God, yes," he sighed, tugging her back against him. After a few moments, she made a contented sleepy sound as her head found the perfect resting spot on his shoulder. She nestled into him, and he savored it. _Nothing feels as good as home._

**Author's Note:** Whew. Well, this is the end, which means I get to give a big final **THANK YOU **to you (yes, you, reading this) for your kindness, enthusiasm, and thoughtfulness. You made this possible. I hope you found the destination worth the journey.

(And if not... well, we get the real thing back tonight!)


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